JOHNNY 
PULLS
OFF A
MASTER
STROKE
......
......
......
......
In a recent team of 8 intercity league match, Johnny returned a perfect score card, and certainly board 27 was his highlight of his achievements.
On the other table against 6S doubled, the N/S opponents had no difficulty in rapping up the contract when West led 2 of clubs at trick one. After winning the trick in dummy declarer played a spade towards his AQ only to get the bad news, but undeterred he simply went up with the Ace. East's opening bid of 1C suggested most of the outstanding points were in his mitt, and so South decided to play him for three hearts to the queen. His vision was rewarded when the third heart was ruffed, establishing the jack as a winner. At trick 6,  a club from hand was ruffed in dummy, and now the jack of hearts provided a discard for declarer's losing diamond. Slam made...... with only the king of spades to lose.
However, on Johnny's table the same contract of 6S doubled netted our hero with +200 .

" How come you got it off with nothing to guide your partner to find the killing diamond lead ? "
" It was easy.....despite having an identical first round bidding sequence of 1C-4S-5C-5S "
" But did you not bid 6C as an obvious non-vulnerable sacrifice against a vulnerable game ? "
" No "
" How come ? "
" I bid 5NT instead "
" How come ? "
" I had to flag up a message to partner that I did not want a club lead "
" How come.....he might well have had the Ace of clubs? "
" True.....but with such a good club fit, there was a real possibility that one of the opponents had 
   a void in the suit.....and even if partner did have the Ace I would not want him to lead it ( or   
   under lead it for that matter ) in case declarer had Kx "
" So how come your partner found the diamond lead as opposed to a heart ? "
" Easy.......because as luck would have it...... the week before I had showed him an almost  
   carbon copy hand taken from the US team trials the 1966 Olympiad, where one of the world's 
   best players made the same brilliant and highly informative bid "
" Amazing "
" Yes, what's even more amazing was that my partner managed to remember what it meant "
" And who was that ? "
" Bigot-Johnson "
" Now that is amazing ! "