What do you do, when your looking for good stories and everybody you meet, tells you: 'Hey bulletin man, you have to watch board 10!'? Well, first you try to find the board, then sit down where you have a good view and finally look like a man who´s bored to death.

You arrive right in time. The actors involved in your article to come are about to finish Board 9 and here it comes, the crucial, the wonderful, the 'you have to' one:

Board 10. Dealer East. Game All K 10 6 5 3 2 — 10 4 2 A K 7 5 Q 7 A J 9 Q J 10 8 6 5 3 2 A K 9 7 Q 7 3 5 — 10 8 6 4 3 8 4 4 A K J 9 8 6 Q J 9 2 West North East South Sabri Alan Funda Sümer 1 1 4 4 5 Pass Pass 6 Pass Pass Dble All Pass Pass Pass

Happy with the fireworks in the bidding, you can´t wait to find out what´s in the play. The defense starts with 2 ruffed in dummy. Now declarer fails to draw trumps and plays a club. His Q is ruffed by West, who continues with Q ducked and a small spade covered by the 10 and the jack. East plays another club ruffed by West, who exits with Q ruffed in dummy. Declarer draws trumps and claims for three down.

-800 seems to be a good result for East/West as they beat all the pairs playing games in hearts. But the shock for East/West is already on it´s way. North opens the score sheet and all eyes are on one -1660 (6x =) and the rest -1050s (5x +1)! Not a single undoubled game for East/West! In the light of day -800 looks more like a case for mourning than celebrating. All of a sudden, East doesn´t feel comfortable in his chair anymore, because he realizes he could have done much better to beat all these overtricks by not leading Q but the small spade first! East gets in twice now to give West one ruff more for the magic number of -1100!

Of course, from the journalists point of view things look quite different. How right your advisors had been, to make you watch board 10. More than grateful you leave the table, because you know you have just seen the cherry on the top of the cream! Whoever had watched board 10 so far, had obvoiusly been referring to a wild bidding, ending in a „thrilling" and „expensive" doubled overtrick. But YOU know that the even better stuff had been waiting for the presence of the press!