[Winstonm]

Scoring: IMP

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Spot cards may not be exact but they are close.
Hamman/Soloway bid to 4S on this auction:
1S-2C
2H-2S
3S-4C
4D-4S

West led the club 7. Hamman won the ace and led the diamond queen. West won and continued clubs. Hamman played the queen from dummy and ruffed east's K.
He ruffed a diamond and led a spade, ducked. He crossed in hearts and led another spade won perforce by the Ace. East returned a club, establishing the uppercut, ruffed by Hamman with the 8 and overruffed.

The remaining cards are:

Scoring: IMP

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If West carelessly returns a diamond, Hamman can pitch a club from dummy then cash the spade K to squeeze east in hearts and clubs. Of course, with this sizzling defense there was no error. West returned a heart, guaranteeing a 13 imp pickup for his side with down 1.

It's hard to criticize Hamman behind the wheel, but I thought at the time the queen of clubs was an odd play. If the club queen is retained, opps cannot profit from the uppercut as Hamman could pitch a heart loser on a low club return while the club K return would set up dummy's clubs.

Is there something here I am not seeing?

[mikeh]

I remember thinking exactly the same when he played the Q: I saw no point to it... the odds that LHO held the K were between slim and none, with an extraordinary emphasis on none, from what I know of their tendencies and carding.. of course Hamman knows them (and bridge) far better than I.

I may be wrong, and there may have been a legitimate purpose to the play but I suspect that it is just more proof, if such were needed, that expert players make mistakes... just not as many as the rest of us...and remember Hamman had been playing a LOT of bridge, including winning the GNT.... he won the GNT and the Spingold inside of the same 2 week period... so we won't be writing him off any time soon even after this apparent error

[jdeegan]

I had the same thought when Bob played the ♣ queen. He probably figured that LHO may yet have had the ♣ king. From the spots on the first trick, ♣ 7 from LHO and ♣ 8 (I think) from RHO, this remained a possibility. Since LHO had the ♦ ace and Bob had bid both majors, a club lead was a fair possibiliy regardless of LHO's original holding.

Should he have foreseen at trick three the exact actual position at trick eight? Pretty obscure to me. Bob is probably as good as any dummy player in the world, but the hands unfold trick by trick for him too. The actual subset of hands possible as of trick eight must be a tiny fraction of the full set of possibilities as seen at trick three. In other words, he had a good reason to fly with the queen at trick three, and the possible drawback was unclear.

In short, why be such a result player on such a complicated hand.