All sports need superstars and personalities. If you are looking for one in the world of bridge, few shine brighter than Germany's Sabine Auken.

However, it is not enough to be a good player, you have to play well when the opportunity arises. When Germany faced old rivals The Netherlands in Round 6 such a moment arose in front of the VuGraph audience.

Let's join Sabine and see how things unfolded:

Dealer South. North/South Vul

Sabine's hand looked like this:

The auction does not last long:

West	North	East	South
Pasman	Weber	Simons	Auken
			1ª
Pass	1NT	2§	2©
Pass	3©	Pass	4©
All Pass

East leads the two of clubs and this is what we can see:

It's clear from the bidding that the two of clubs is a singleton and East must have most of the missing high cards. As so often happens although there are not too many losers there is a distinct shortage of tricks. It is clear to play low from dummy at trick one and when East puts in the nine of clubs we have to win with the king.

Assuming the hearts are not 4-1 West is bound to be able to get a club ruff and if there are two heart losers as well, the contract will be hopeless. A low heart to the king is one possibility, but with a different plan in mind we try a deceptive ten of hearts. West follows with the eight and when East starts to think it is clear that West has the queen. East eventually takes the ace and returns the ten of clubs, ruffed by West with the queen of hearts. That's good news as there are no more trump losers, but when West plays back a diamond there is still some work to do.

There is no reason to suppose that West has the king of diamonds, so we play the eight from dummy, covered by the jack and ace.

While the defenders have been thinking so have we, and if the distribution is favourable it may be possible to take advantage of East's play to trick three.

(In the audience your Editor and Canada's John Carruthers felt there should be a winning line, but we were still trying to find it when Bermuda Bowl Champion Peter Weichsel pointed out a complex route to success.)
With the idea of removing West's exit cards we cash the ace of spades. When the queen appears on our left we are disposed to treat it as a singleton. We take two rounds of trumps, ending in the dummy to reach this position:

We play the seven of clubs and when East covers with the jack we discard the three of diamonds. East was not expecting that, and after some consideration realises that there is no escape. The loser on loser play has forced East to surrender two tricks to dummy, enabling us to get rid of two of our losing spades. (That was the line pointed out by Peter, but it is not the end of the story!)

Discussing the hand over coffee early yesterday, Sabine revealed that she had woken up very early in the morning having dreamt of an even stronger line! The point is that if West had started with a doubleton spade, she would have had an exit card and the endplay would have failed. However, the fact that West holds the king of diamonds and the clubs means that a squeeze is possible. Declarer draws trumps and plays a club as before, ruffing when West covers. Then come the ace and king of spades. Say West follows to both rounds. When you play a third spade and ruff it this will be the position with East still to play:

	ª - © - ¨ Q § A 8
ª J © - ¨ 10 4 § -		ª - © - ¨ K 9 § Q 4
	ª 8 7 © - ¨ 3 § -

East has no winning play, because a diamond discard allows declarer to exit with the queen of diamonds, forcing a lead back to the entryless dummy.

For the record, here is the deal, which was rotated for convenience:

Dealer North. North/South Vul
	ª A K 8 7 6 © J 10 6 4 ¨ A 3 § K 6
ª Q © A 9 5 ¨ K J 9 6 § Q J 10 9 4		ª J 10 9 5 4 2 © Q 8 ¨ 10 7 4 2 § 2
	ª 3 © K 7 3 2 ¨ Q 8 5 § A 8 7 5 3

West	North	East	South
Simons	Auken	Pasman	Weber
	1ª	Pass	1NT
2§	2©	Pass	3©
Pass	4©	All Pass