In the second round of the European Teams Championship Sweden met Denmark. Per-Ola Cullin got into a tricky 2 diamonds contract.

Askgaard led a top club and switched to the eight of hearts ducked to declarer. Cullin exited with the jack of clubs taken by Askgaard while Bjarnarson contributed the queen. West continued with another heart ducked once more and declarer exited with the third heart to reach this interesting position:

East must lead a diamond to beat this (the spade queen may work as well). If declarer ducks a club back beats the contract. The ace doesn’t work either. If declarer continues with a trump West plays his last club and East discards a spade: no endplay (East still has a heart to exit). The fun starts if declarer ruff his club instead. East overruffs, and plays back the thirteenth heart. West ruffs and play back the other triple void. So the diamond nine scores as well.

You can replay it here (Board 10): View.

Cullin got a chance when East ducked the second heart. The textbook play of “transefrring the ruff” would have worked. Instead of playing a heart he should have played a club discarding his heart from dummy. He can safely ruff his loser later.