When Italy met Norway in the round robin of the 2025 Bermuda Bowl, both North-South pairs overreached to five hearts after East-West had sacrificed in four spades. Both pairs were then doubled.
At the first table, Antonio Sementa for Italy won the diamond lead, cashed the heart ace, unblocked dummy’s top spades, ruffed a diamond and drew the remaining trump. He then cashed the spade queen and crossed to dummy in trumps. East, Boye Brogeland, carefully jettisoned his club king on that, to unblock the suit in case West’s clubs were A-Q-10. Sementa then had to play a club, conceding three tricks to West for down one.
In the other room, Tor-Eivind Grude for Norway took a different route to the same destination. After eliminating the pointed suits in similar fashion to the first table, he led a club out of his hand. Like Sementa, he hoped one of the defenders would be endplayed, forced to give a ruff-and-discard. This line put Giovanni Donati, West, to the test. Looking at the club A-Q-J, he was tempted to insert the jack, but he knew South’s shape. The contract could not be beaten unless East’s singleton club was the king, so Donati found the excellent defense of rising with the club ace, crashing East’s king, and he was now in position to cash two more club winners, flattening the board at down one.
This maneuver, where a defender rises with a high card to swallow partner’s honor, is known as a Crocodile Coup.