Here’s the solution to Le Bridgeur ‘s Hand of the Month exercise.

This hand was nominated for the 2018 Best Played Hand awards. Starring, Italian Ron Tacchi.

IMPs, all red. West lead the club King, and East followed with the 6.

First good move: duck. But the defense does not let itself be fooled by this and West insists with the Queen of Clubs to remove the potential entry to the Diamonds.

After the Ace of Clubs, second good move: play a Heart and let it run. The defense wins and plays trump.

Third good move: win the Spade Ace and overtake the Queen with your King, in order to pull trumps. You have to give up on the idea of playing a second round of hearts, there’s no hope that the defense will let you ruff a heart. Now that we are at “n-1”, everything is in place for a squeeze in minors.

Fourth good move: declarer cashes all his trumps, keeping Ace-King-10 in Diamonds and the 10 of Clubs. West must guard the Jack of Diamonds in three and the Jack of Clubs.

Fifth and last good move: South plays the Queen of Diamonds, overtakes with the King and exits in Clubs, forcing West to play back into the KT of Diamonds.

A contract won with clear virtuosity by Ron Tacchi, writer and photographer for most international bulletins and who last year won the 2nd Division Interclubs… in France!

Beautiful play, but not enough to win the 2018 best played hand award, which went to the Norwegian Boye Brogeland…

The full deal