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Giorgio Belladonna, winner of 16 world championships and a member of the famed Italian Blue Team that dominated world bridge from the late 1950s to the early 1970s, was a player of infinite resources.
On top of his oft-demonstrated talent for rarely making an error in judgment -- the trademark of all great players -- Belladonna had an imagination that seemingly knew no bounds. He made bids and plays on the spot that no one had ever thought of before, and bridge literature is replete with his exploits.
Consider this deal where Belladonna, playing the Precision System, opened two clubs (showing a minimum opening bid with long clubs) and soon found himself on lead against three notrump. The hand was played in the 1972 London Sunday Times Invitational Pairs Championship.
Belladonna made the extraordinary opening lead of the ten of clubs, and declarer (Terence Reese) could not survive this lethal blow. He took the ten with the queen, crossed to dummy with a heart and returned a low diamond.
East went up with the ace, catching his partner's king, but that didn't really matter. East returned a club, and the contract went down two.
At the other tables where the contract was three notrump, West led either his fourth-best club or a lower club, and in all these cases declarer made three notrump after dummy's nine held the first trick. South lost at most two diamonds and two clubs.
Belladonna reasoned that Reese had the Q-J of clubs for his three-notrump bid, and in order to guard against the possibility that dummy had the singleton nine, he led the ten of clubs rather than a low club. No truer arrow was ever shot!