What has happened to Denmark, so often placed in top of the table but in Malta for example drawing Liechtenstein, losing to Monaco and getting totally wiped out by Norway in one and the same day. When the match against the Netherlands was put on VuGraph on Wednesday morning it seemed that the Dutch were fighting to get among the top six while Denmark was trying to avoid the bottom ditto.

In fact it is very strange as the Danish team consist of very strong and experienced players. The nestor, Steen Møller, had 403 caps ahead of Malta (only his old time partner Stig Werdelin has more - 439). Peter Schaltz has 370 caps. Everybody have lots of medals from Olympiads (Dorthe Schaltz even a gold medal from Venice 1988), Europeans etc, but here things just do not function.

And even then, in flashes, they display their skills. The only debutant, Søren Gødtfredsen, made the VuGraph audience cry out for joy with his declarer play on board 7. They had seen the winning play and were excited while Gødtfredsen was considering. Would he find it? The computer had already given its bid on a winning line of play and probably felt that Gødtfredsen was headed for defeat:

Board 7. Dealer South. Game All ª A Q J 10 © A Q 8 6 ¨ K 8 4 § 8 2 ª 9 7 4 2 ª K 6 5 © 10 7 5 4 2 © K ¨ 10 9 ¨ A Q J 3 2 § 4 3 § J 7 6 5 ª 8 3 © J 9 3 ¨ 7 6 5 § A K Q 10 9 West North East South Nab Godtfredsen Bertens Møller 1§ Pass 1¨ 2¨ Pass Pass 2ª Pass 3© Pass 3NT All Pass

1¨ showed hearts, and the rest was natural. East led ¨A and ¨Q. The computer ducked (much too often it does not follow the play) but on the video screen we could see that Gødtfredsen made ready for the pedestrian endplay by winning, planning to cash five club tricks followed by a diamond for East. It was soon obvious what the computer had in mind as it won the third diamond and finessed §9!

Gødtfredsen does not play double dummy like that but he is a good analyst so he found another legitimate - and press friendly - way of taking nine, no, ten tricks.

He cashed three top clubs, getting the bad news in the suit and correctly discarding a spade from his hand. He thought for quite some time while the atmosphere in the VuGraph got very tense. Gødtfredsen had to realize that he needed a singleton heart in East, either the 10 or the K. Because of the 2¨ bid he chose to play for the ©K asking for ©9 from Dummy winning with the ace in hand, dropping the king. Everybody clapped their hands while he continued with a low heart to ©J, finessed for ©10, cashed another heart - and carefully remembered to get his overtrick, endplaying East with the diamond originally reserved for the ninth trick to get a spade lead into the AQ.

Looking at the scores from the other matches you saw nothing but 3NT - 1 (among them the Dutch result) and some 3NT - 2 which tells you just how well Gødtfredsen played the hand. A worthy candidate for the best play of the championships.

With plays like that, may be Denmark will advance a little in the standings during the later stages. They made a beginning by winning this match 22-8.