The event is a board-a-match team game: win, lose or draw the board.
After the 1 opening bid, Vic has a choice of passing or slipping in
a 1 overcall. Which will he do?

 South
   —
   —
   —
   —

He decides to pass, because of his nice heart holding. Maybe they
will get too high in hearts. The trouble with bidding 1 is that if
hearts are raised, partner may continue to compete in spades, when
West would like to defend a heart contract.

Now the auction has died out in 2. What will Vic do? Pass, bid 2 or
double for takeout.

 South
   —
   —
   —
   —

Vic bids 2. If he doubles, partner may bid 3, which is not what he
wants to hear. Passing out 2 could be right, but partner is marked
with a singleton heart, so it looks like E-W may make a partscore.

Vic has pushed them up to 3. Should he pass now, or should he double
them? What does the double mean?

 South
   —
   —
   —
   —

Vic doubles. If he had overcalled right away and subsequently
doubled, it would have been for takeout. But here partner is aware
that Vic passed over 1. If Vic had a good hand with spades and
takeout values of hearts, he wouldn't have passed over 1. Therefore,
the double must be for penalty.

Vic doubled in an effort to stop partner from bidding 3. It's a
risk, but a good one at matchpoint scoring, to score the magic 200.
What is Vic's opening lead?

 South
   —
   —
   —
   —

Vic leads the 8 of clubs, his safest lead. With honors in the other
three suits, he doesn't want to guess wrong by leading into
declarer's strength.

Declarer calls for the queen of clubs. Partner plays the king and
South the 4. Partner returns the 4 of hearts. South plays the 3. What
is Vic's plan on defense? Who has the jack of clubs?

 South
   —
   —
   —
   —

If Vic trusts his partner, partner has the jack of clubs. Without it,
partner should return a spade or diamond. The trump return indicates
that East has the club suit locked up. This means that East has the
jack-third of clubs left, so declarer can never set up the club suit.
This is a high-level concept, but a good one to discuss with your
regular partners.

So, without fear of allowing declarer to draw trumps and run clubs
(which he can't if partner has the club suit locked up), Vic wins the
queen of hearts, cashes the ace and leads another heart, to destroy
diamond ruffs in dummy. The full hand is ...

 South
   —
   —
   —
   —

After a club to the queen and king, and three rounds of trump,
declarer had to lose a spade and two diamonds, for down two, 500
points to East-West.

The bidding and play is exactly as it happened back in 1957, in a New
England Regional. West was Victor Mitchell and East was Jan Stone.

Declarer could have saved one trick by refusing the club finesse and
ruffing both his diamonds. If East had bid 3, West would lose five
tricks for down one.

THE END.

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 South
   A 5
   K J 8 7 3
   A K 9 8
   5 4

South 1 pass 3	West pass 2 double	North 2 pass all pass	East pass pass
Opening lead: 8

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