The Bridge World June, 1997 page 20.

IBPA: Bull 387 page 15, April. From the Hague Bulletin report by the IBPA Editor entitled The Three-way Finesse.

Here is Kaplan's write-up:

My team had a rather short run in the Vanderbilt, but there was a consolation prize at the finish: With a somewhat different team, Norinan Kay and I won the concluding Open Swiss Teams. Our teammates were Bart Bramley, Brian Glubok. Geir Heigemo and Waiter Schafer.

Helgemo is the young Norwegian who has been producing superb results for the last five years. The reason for this became clear when I played a match with him and he produced a brilliant dummy-play on this deal, which hinged on another eight-spot:

When an opposing weak two-bid is raised to game, the fourth player holding a good hand must guess well. Helgemo took a reasonable shot at six diamonds.

Dealer West. Game All 9 7 3 9 7 6 2 K 10 8 6 9 2 8 4 Q J 10 5 K Q J 8 4 A 10 5 3 5 3 K 10 7 5 3 Q J 6 4 A K 6 2 — A Q J 9 7 4 2 A 8 West North East South Kaplan Helgemo 2 Pass 4 6! All Pass

He ruffed the opening heart lead, happy to have escaped a club lead. The diamond ace removed the missing trumps, and it was now necessary to score three spade tricks. The only obvious chance was a three-three split, but Helgemo saw another possibility. He led a spade to the seven, a rare finesse against an eight on the first round.

East made a tricky play by winning with the jack and returning the five. Helgemo guessed what was happening: He played low from his hand, won with dummy's nine, and threw dummy's club loser on the fourth round of spades to make a slam that failed in the replay.

There were two psychological clues to this remarkable winning play. East's spade return was slightly suspicious, since he could obviously have led a heart. And if West had been able to win the third trick he might have done so, or at least hitched fractionally.

None of the experts who were shown South's problem found the solution, and all were in awe of Helgemo's effort. If East had returned an obvious heart at the fourth trick, South could still have succeeded by ruffing, crossing to dummy, and leading the spade nine