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The 2001 final of the Dutch Meesterklasse ('Master League', the top league) for teams. Modalfa (Amsterdam) plays De Lombard (Rotterdam), contesting the Dutch championship. Any Amsterdam-Rotterdam encounter is characterised by intense rivalry, like Ajax - Feyenoord at football (soccer).
Noteworthy is that in that year's final all of the contesting partnerships were new: none of them had been playing in the Master League for longer than a year. Perhaps that is what caused the disaster below (by the way: Muller — De Wijs, to name one of the pairs, still play as a pair today, in 2010; so maybe some things have changed.)
| W/All | ♠ | A K Q 3 | | | | ♥ | 9 5 | | ♦ | A 9 8 6 | | ♣ | Q 7 5 | | ♠ | 10 6 5 4 |  | ♠ | 9 8 2 | | ♥ | A Q J 7 6 3 | ♥ | 8 4 | | ♦ | 3 | ♦ | K 10 5 4 | | ♣ | K 4 | ♣ | A J 3 2 | | | ♠ | J 7 | | | ♥ | K 10 2 | | ♦ | Q J 7 2 | | ♣ | 10 9 8 6 |
| West | North | East | South |
|---|
| Nab | De Wijs | Paulissen | Muller | | 1♥ | double | pass | 1NT | | pass | 2NT | pass | 3NT | | pass | pass | double | pass | | pass | pass | | |
Gert-Jan Paulissen (Modalfa) saw his partner open 1♥, looked at 8 HCP and to his surprise saw the opponents quickly bid 3NT. He judged that the time had come to express his doubts about this contract by way of a double.
Bart Nab led the ♥Q. Bauke Muller won with the ♥K and finessed in diamonds. The roof came down when East won and played back his second heart, allowing West to collect five heart tricks.
Declarer was careful to keep his four clubs, thus 'limiting' the damage to −1400.
It is remarkable for a pair to bid on to 3NT, having 22 HCP and no special distribution. Probably the strength of the various notrump-bids had not been agreed upon sufficiently. After the end of the match Muller admitted that his 3NT bid was too aggressive but it is clear that he expected a bit more in North.
'Give North the ♦10 instead of a small one and 3NT makes if opener West has the ♦K’, he added. He smiled when saying so, perhaps to show that this wasn't as crazy as it looked. (To put his remark in perspective: in that case too EW could cash eight tricks from the start: club lead to East, heart switch, club to East, another heart. Admittedly, in the actual layout that would be a double-dummy lead and defence: West would have to lead the ♣3 to East's ♣J and after winning the first heart trick he would have to play the ♣K, which East would have to overtake with the ♣A. But if West were to have an extra club, a club lead would not be strange at all and would give EW the first nine tricks — also in the layout mentioned by Muller!). It is remarkable that at the other table Jean-Paul Vis (Modalfa) too thought his North hand worth a raise to 2NT, after the same start to the bidding. However Jan van Cleeff, South, sensibly passed and was subsequently defeated by four tricks in 2NT. But since he was not doubled, Modalfa gained 1000 points on the deal, for a 15 IMP swing. |