One player (and he is not even a Scotsman) in the Spingold took this literally when he defended on this deal:
Scoring: IMP
If you want to be in slam, 6NT played by West is superior. However, at both tables they arrived in 6♦ which seems strange considering that they are off 2 key cards for diamonds.
One would have thought that it's virtually impossible to get to that slam nowadays when you operate with 5 "aces". Anyway, in 6♦ they were.
At one table, ♥A was led and hearts continued to dummy. Declarer advanced ♦Q and it went 6, 2, 10. Another diamond and the 9 from South. Too bad, down 1.
In the other room the lead was also ♥A followed by a low heart, and again declarer asked for ♦Q. We don't know what happened to South, but to this trick he inexplicably followed with ♦9!? Tick, 1370 and 16 IMPs.
Some called it the "blunder of the century". We don't know yet, but we do know that his partner wasn't happy. The ending was happy enough though, because the team went on to win comprehensively and is now in the quarter-finals.
In a way I think it makes us all feel a little better when a blunder like that happens to one of the top 5 pairs in the world.
Roland

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