Jérôme Rombaut and Leo, winners of the 2025 Kaplan Blue Ribbon Pairs

Board 25 – Session 6

With only two boards left to play, we knew we were in a strong position. We definitely didn’t want to end up with a bottom score.

My lead as East was tricky against the final contract of 3♥.

I was considering a low diamond or the ace of clubs. (A spade seemed too risky, likely indicating shortness in declarer’s hand.) I chose the ♦2 (third and fifth).

Declarer, Mark Lair, played low from dummy, and Leo quickly played the ♦Q in third position (he knows my style!).

After winning with the queen, he thought for a long time and played the ♣K, followed by a small club. This was not the best defense. I was expecting him to play:

• ♣K and another club with K doubleton,
• ♣K then ♣Q with KQx,
• or ♣Q then ♣K with KQxx.

After winning the ♣A, I played another club instead of switching to a spade. 3♥ made. About 25% of the field played 4♥ down one, while the rest played 3♥ making. We could have been the only pair to reduce declarer to eight tricks.

Board 25 – Session 5

We produced a very good defense against 3NT. Leo led the ♣5.

Declarer won with the ♣Q and played back the ♣K. Leo took immediately with the ♣A and played back the ♠K, killing declarer’s last communication with dummy.

Declarer (David Grainger) ducked the ♠K, likely expecting Leo to continue the suit, and was preparing to discard his last big club (the jack) to establish dummy’s clubs. However, Leo avoided the trap and instead switched to the ♥8, which was taken by the queen, king, and ace.

Declarer cashed the ♣J, then played ♦A, ♦K, and ♦J, but after I won with the ♦Q, I could easily exit with the ♥10. Declarer was forced to lose the last two heart tricks.

3NT down one was worth 89%.

Board 30 – Soloway Knockout

Dealer: East
Vulnerability: None
Contract: 3NT by North

We were in the Round of 32 against the Cayne team. We had a 50 IMP lead before the last two sets and were still up by 25 IMPs before the final 15 boards. The penultimate set hadn’t gone well, so I knew we needed a strong finish on the last board.

West led the ♠5 (fourth best). From dummy I played small, then the jack, then the ten. West thought for a long time and returned the ♣10 to my jack. East discarded the ♠3 after a very long pause.

East hadn't opened in first seat, non-vulnerable, so he probably had only five spades, and most likely a 5-4-4-0 shape, since he did not discard a red suit. I played a diamond to my king and won the trick, which didn’t give me any information about where the ace was.

To make the contract, I needed to guess the diamonds correctly and probably find either Ax or Jx of hearts with West. I therefore played a heart to my ♥Q. East took with the ace and returned a spade to my queen. Now I had a serious communication problem. I needed to get back to hand to play a diamond to the ten, but my only entry was in clubs. I couldn’t cash clubs or diamonds immediately, otherwise I would lose five tricks.

So I played a club back to my ♣K (East discarded another spade), then a diamond to the ♦10. West took with the ace and made a mistake by trying to put me in dummy, returning a diamond.

I cashed the last spade in dummy and exited with my last diamond. East was left with only hearts and had to return a small heart to my ten, allowing me to cash the ♣A for nine tricks.

+10 IMPs, but it was not enough. We lost the match by one IMP. Horrible!