Bridge is a great leveller: at some point, it makes fools of us all. As a result, it’s probably best to steer clear of any definitive pronouncements — ‘I couldn’t make the hand’, or ‘there was no way to beat it’ — as there’s almost always someone who can prove you wrong. Even experts end up being out-thought on a regular basis. The one really safe way of avoiding embarrassment is to be like Socrates, who declared: ‘All I know is that I know nothing.’

Of course, it’s impossible advice to follow: I’m forever blurting things out which turn out to be rubbish. Just the other week, I was watching the Bermuda Bowl on BBO, and saw Tony Forrester bid to a slam. ‘Oh no — too high, you are going dooown!’ I yelled at the screen. Three minutes later he’d made it on a non-simultaneous double squeeze.

At least I was in private. During the same event, one of the expert vu-graph commentators stated publicly that he couldn’t see how Claude Nunes was going to make this contract. Nunes soon showed him how:

(1♣ = 15+ balanced. 1♦ = 4+♥. 2NT = minors.) North led the ♠Q. Nunes (West) won in dummy and played ♥A and another heart. South took the ♥K and switched to his singleton diamond. Nunes won with the ♦Q, played a spade to the ♠J, then overtook the ♠10 with the ♠K and executed a perfect Scissors Coup: he played the ♠6 and discarded his ♣6. South won, but with the link to his partner cut off, he couldn’t get his ruff. He ended up winning his master trump but that was all — plus 420 to E/W.