This deal occurred in a national team championship more than 50 years ago. The star was Irving Kass, who transformed what appeared to be a sure loss of more than 1300 points into an unexpected gain.

North’s two-club bid was strong and artificial, and South’s three diamonds showed a positive response with a good diamond suit. South then became declarer at six diamonds.

Kass, West, was on lead against the slam. Had he led a heart, South would have made 12 tricks after the diamond finesse succeeded. And if Kass had led a black suit, declarer would have taken all the tricks.

But Kass chose the extraordinary lead of the deuce of diamonds! This gave South pause for thought. He could not conceive that the lead was from the K-2 of diamonds, let alone that West had the king. From South’s viewpoint, therefore, playing low from dummy would lead to defeat after East won the trick and returned the heart.

So declarer put up the ace of diamonds, hoping to drop the singleton king. When the king didn’t appear, South still had another string to his bow. If East started with the K-10-5 of diamonds and at least three clubs, the slam could still be made. In that case, declarer could not be stopped from discarding all of his hearts, so he would lose only a trump trick regardless of how East defended.

But when East ruffed the fourth club with the ten and South overruffed, so did Kass. His heart return then did South in.

In finding the opening diamond lead, Kass took advantage of South’s five-club response to four notrump, indicating that he had no aces. Kass knew dummy would have the ace of diamonds and decided to put declarer to the test immediately.

Tomorrow >> Famous Hand.

— Steve Becker