Bridge - Remembering Hans Kreijns, Dutch Champion - NYTimes.com One of the world's great players, Hans Kreijns from the Netherlands, died on April 4 at 83. He played the straight man to Bob Slavenburg, his mercurial partner, who died in 1981. Together they won the World Pairs Olympiad title in 1966 in Amsterdam and were second at the 1965 European Team Championship in Ostend, Belgium. Kreijns was also third on the Dutch team at the 1980 World Team Olympiad in Valkenburg, the Netherlands, with the partner Hans Vergoed. In the 1980s Kreijns was the Dutch junior coach, his star pupils being Enri Leufkens and Berry Westra, who won the 1987 World Junior Team Championship and the 1993 Bermuda Bowl. Kreijns captured 12 national titles and is still the greatest master-point winner in Dutch history. The diagramed deal occurred during the last session of the 1966 Pairs Olympiad. Kreijns and Slavenburg finished only 8 match points ahead of Dr. John Fisher and Jim Jacoby from the United States. Several boards could have changed the result, including this one. If Kreijns (South) had opened one no-trump, it would have shown 16 to 18 points. And few pairs used five-card majors in those days. Against three no-trump West, warned away from a spade lead, tried the heart jack, that or a club being the best start. Declarer played low from the dummy and East, despite looking at dummy's cards, unthinkingly signaled encouragement with his six. Kreijns won with his queen, cashed the club queen and played a club to dummy's king, happy to see the 3-2 break. Now South led dummy's heart ten, covered by the king and ace, and scooping up West's eight. Declarer led another heart to establish a third winner in the suit. On this trick West discarded the spade nine, but East shifted to the diamond three. (A spade return would not have been better. South would have finessed to leave West endplayed.) Declarer took West's jack with dummy's ace, cashed the high heart and ran the clubs, bringing everyone down to three cards. South retained the spade ace and diamond queen-nine. West tried to be deceptive by throwing the spade queen and keeping the diamond king, the spade king and a low spade. But Kreijns, knowing what was happening, played a diamond to his nine. Kreijns took one spade, three hearts, two diamonds and five clubs for a tied top. The other declarers who won that many tricks received the spade-king opening lead. If he had won only 10 tricks, he and Slavenburg would not have won the world title. The deal is a good advertisement for reverse signals. When you wish to encourage, you sometimes cannot afford a high card - as here, when East had to play his heart four at Trick 1. But when you have no honor in a suit, you can usually safely part with one of your higher spot cards.