It's not often you see the Merrimac Coup executed at the table. It happened Saturday morning in a practice match between the women from The Netherlands and Norway. Our hero is Norwegian Marianne Harding.

After a competitive auction, South arrived in 3NT and Harding led the ten of spades to dummy's ace, with East discouraging. Next came a club to the 10, ducked by Harding. She won the next club with the ace and paused.

A spade continuation or a low diamond would give the contract, a heart switch would take it one down, but Harding found something far prettier: the king of diamonds! It gave declarer an extra diamond trick, but more importantly it killed the entry to dummy's clubs, and the contract went two down.

Very well done to Marianne Harding. I think it's worth a write-up for the IBPA bulletin and perhaps a nomination for the best defence of the year.