Contract: 5♣
Lead: ♠K
The deal above can be found on page 150 of Pietro Forquet's Bridge With The Blue Team. In the introduction, Forquet states:
All the hands used arose in actual competition and are faithfully and accurately reported.
Belladonna has, at first glance, three losers, but manages to compress that into two. While the theme is neat I think that, on this layout, most players would do the same.
You can follow the play, above...
Forquet:
With West's ace of clubs and East's king of clubs now bare and falling on the same trick, Belladonna had no trouble making his game.
At the other table the contract was Four Hearts which was defeated ... declarer lost trump control
Very nice! Belladonna brings home the bacon!
Or did he?
Contract: 4♥
Lead: ♠K
This remarkably similar(!) deal appears on page 12 of The Bridge World, July 1968 in a report by Pietro Forquet on the Italian Teams Championship.
Forquet:
In the closed room North had no difficulty in making nine tricks [in 3NT]...
Belladonna found himself struggling in 4♥ after a Roman Club auction... West lead the king of spades and Giorgio could not make the contract since the 4-2 trump split didn't give him enough time to establish the clubs.
A 5♣ .contract could not have been defeated since Giorgio could have...
So it is a near-certainty that the deal in Bridge With The Blue Team is falsified; Belladonna neither played in, nor made, 5♣.
All credit to Paul Barden, the eagle-eyed blogger who spotted this.
http://adifficultgame.blogspot.co.uk/2015/03/you-cant-believe-everything-you-read.htm
Bridge a la Carte, Ivan Erdos, page 102, published in 1966
Contract: 3NT (matchpoints)
Lead: 8♣
Bridge With The Blue Team, Pietro Forquet, page 146, first published in 1971
Contract: 7NT
Lead: 8♣
These two remarkably similar deals are discussed here:
http://bridgewinners.com/article/view/what-a-coincidence-2/
The play is identical; South wins the first club, cashes three hearts and runs the diamonds. To hold declarer to 12 tricks, West keeps the heart guard and his low club to cover South's spot while East throws all his clubs to guard spades.
Lawrence prevents a third overtrick; Forquet defeats a grand slam.
What odds that the second deal never occurred?
