Bridge | 10 August 2024

What can you say about the Rimstedt brothers that hasn’t already been said? They returned from the American Nationals in Toronto just in time to join their father’s team, and went on to win the Chairman’s Cup in Sweden for the third year running.

This hand was reported to me by a friend who was there, showing that, not only are they incredibly good, they also sometimes like to play to the gallery (see diagram).

West’s little toy showed five-five in two unknown suits (yes, apparently that’s still legal in some parts of the world), and East’s 3♣ just asked to bail out as soon as possible. What was Mikael to do but overcall Sweden’s favourite bid – 3 NT?

The lead was the ♠J, won by declarer, and the King of Hearts was taken by West who continued Spades to South. The ♥Q brought the bad – if not unexpected – news, when West threw a Diamond, and play stopped for a while.

The Diamond discard told Mikael that West probably had a Spade-Diamond two suiter, and therefore a doubleton Club. To get anywhere on the hand, he needed to extract West’s possible entry in Clubs, so after a minute or two he made the excellent play of a small Club from hand. West grabbed the Queen and played a Diamond this time, taken by South.

Now it was time to deal with East; the ♦K was cashed, a Heart played to dummy and the ♠A also cashed, bringing East down to only Clubs and the ♥10. East was thrown in with the Heart and – just for good effect – Mikael discarded the King of Clubs from Hand, which apparently actually drew applause from the audience in the Bridgerama. East had to give dummy an entry with the Jack of Clubs, and nine tricks was recorded.