A remarkable individual coup

Individual contests have become less popular in recent years. So it was refreshing to see a major individual tournament recently staged in Poland. Marilyn Malinowska (who is British, but married to a man born in Poland) achieved a remarkable coup on today's deal. Game all, dealer North. East and South were two of Poland's finest players ever. After Piotr Gawrys chose to overcall one spade as opposed to doubling the opening bid of one heart, Marilyn eschewed the prosaic raise to four spades in favour of a leap to three no trumps. Her reasoning was sound enough – North would lead a heart and her king would win the first trick, then she would cash seven spades and hope for a ninth trick in her partner's hand. If he didn't have one – well, four spades wouldn't make either. North, bewildered when he seemed to have a good hand, chose not to double and chose also to lead the ace of hearts. He continued the suit, and was able to win the last four tricks after losing the next eight. One down, but if he had chosen instead to lead the ace of clubs, the defenders could have taken no fewer than 12 tricks for a penalty of 800 "the hard way". However, at another table the bidding was: North decided to upgrade her hand to strong club status (the system in this Individual was of course Polish Club) and East's double just showed some high cards. North doubled West's jump to four spades for takeout, so South took it out and West doubled more to stop East bidding on than for any other reason. Declarer guessed the trump suit correctly to record an overtrick and plus 950.