Lederer 2004 - Best Played Hand Award
Match 7 Board 25 Dealer North E/W vulnerable 

With one round to go there were three teams still in contention. Ireland were leading with 230 VPs from the Holders (222) and England (208). Ireland were playing the President’s Team and the Holders faced England on VuGraph. This hand was critical in both matches
  9 8 2
K 6 5 2
J 9 5 3
Q 4		  
A K 5
A 9 8 7 4
K 6 4
K 8		   -
Q 10
A Q 10 8 7
A 10 7 6 5 3
  Q J 10 7 6 4 3
J 3
2
J 9 2		  

The Holders and England both bid to 7

South
Colin
Simpson		 West
Andrew
McIntosh		 North
David
Price		 East
Phil
King
    Pass 1
3 Dble* 4 6
Pass 7 All Pass
South
Andrew
Robson		 West
David
Gold		 North
David
Bakhshi		 East
Tom
Townsend
Pass 1
3 3NT 4 5
Pass 6 Pass 7
All Pass

Both Souths led Q and both declarers played to set up the clubs. When South showed up with a third club they had to ruff with dummy’s K. Now the critical point had been reached: how to play the trumps. King for the Holders and Townsend for England both played a diamond to the Ace and then crossed back to dummy’s A to finesse the 10. This line would have succeeded if the J had been singleton in the South hand or trebleton in the North hand, but failed on the actual lie of the cards. So the board was flat in 7 minus one.

In the Ireland versus President’s match Tom Hanlon and Hugh McGann bid and made 6NT. The bidding at the other table was:

South
John
Carroll		 West
Willie
Coyle		 North
Tommy
Garvey		 East
Zia
Mahmood
    Pass 1
3 Dble* 4 6
Pass 7 All Pass
The play started in the same way, but, after ruffing the third club with K, Zia played a diamond to the 8! When that held he was able to cross back to dummy with A and take another trump finesse. There was much discussion on VuGraph, Bridge Base and in the bar afterwards about the relative odds of the two lines of play. I am reliably informed that Zia’s line of finessing the 8 immediately is 21 to 17 . Zia was the only person to make thirteen tricks and was a worthy winner of the award for the best played hand.

Ireland lost 12 IMPs on the board and lost the match 27-33. When the Holders could only manage a 33-27 win over England, Ireland emerged as the winners of the 2004 Lederer by 2 VPs, the smallest ever margin of victory. If the Holders had made 7, they would have retained the trophy.