Some combinations hard to open

What is a yegg? That made me think of this trick: How do you spell “poke”? What about “woke”? Now can you spell the word for the white of an egg?

Some will smile and say, “You can't catch me out. It is y-o-l-k.”

Yegg, as crossword aficionados will know, is slang for a safecracker.

South is in four spades. West leads the club king. When East encourages with the seven, West plays a low club to his partner's ace. Then East shifts to the diamond eight. How should South continue?

The bidding was straightforward. South did much better to rebid one spade than one notrump with no club stopper. In theory, three no-trump has no chance, but the defenders must be careful not to block the clubs.

In four spades, South can afford only one trump loser. What is the best play?

There are various options. Declarer could lead dummy's jack, planning, if it is not covered, to run it, then to finesse his 10 on the second round. Here, that shouldn't work, because East should cover the jack with his king. Cover the last or only honor if it might establish an extra trick for your side, which East should realize needs to be the case here.

A worse plan is to run the eight on the first round, with the intention of playing low to the 10 next if West takes the first round with the queen or king. With this layout, that also fails.

Mathematically, the best play is low to the 10 on the first round, and to cash the ace next — no j-o-k-e. This works whenever East has both royals or royal-doubleton.