Hi all
Last Saturday we had our GNT semi-finals match against team Vishnevsky. They beat us by 27 imp. I don’t feel too bad about it, it was a good match. No excruciating blunders, as far as I can remember. The small sting I still feel is that the slams were not very friendly to us, but more on that later.
This deal was funny.
West started with Ace and another and the King won the trick.
South knew his safety plays, played a to dummy’s Ace and ruffed a intending to play a towards the Queen. But … the got overruffed with the Jack. Declarer was left with a trump loser and the Ace of 
so ended up one trick short.
South ran into the 0.16% odds that the suit broke 0-8. A lesser player would have taken the finesse and end up with ten tricks. But here the safety play detonated unexpectedly in declarer’s own face.
As opposing team member holding the 8-card heart suit at the other table I would like to register a dissent. A “lesser” declarer made the contract by rejecting a safety play. And as my teammate noted he was closer to the truth: say, you take
Ace and ruff a heart back (successfully). Now you play a trump. West goes up and plays another trump. Then later he simply ducks a club. Contract fails.