In the Blue Ribbon Pairs, Munday played at four spades. A contract of 3NT might have been preferable, but after South freely rebid three spades, North’s raise to four was clear.

West led the ace of hearts, and when East discouraged with the deuce, suggesting a shift, West switched to the nine of diamonds. East took the ace and returned a diamond, and West won with the jack and led the king, forcing dummy’s to ruff and seemingly assuring a trump trick for East’s jack.

Munday judged from the active East-West bidding and the defense that East had trump length. Munday ruffed dummy’s king of hearts, went to the king of trumps and ruffed the queen of hearts, reducing to the same trump length as East. Munday then ran the clubs, and East succumbed to a trump coup; whenever he ruffed, Munday would overruff and claim.

Munday hoped his plus 620 would be worth a strong result since East-West had four tricks to take against 3NT, but it wasn’t to be. Many North-South pairs did reach 3NT played by North. If East led the nine of hearts (denying heart strength) to the ace, West could have found the diamond switch. As it was, not one East-West held 3NT to three, and Munday scored only 20 percent of the matchpoints.

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