DID HIS CALL CAUSE INDIGESTION?

You are enjoying your breakfast, drinking white tea, munching on hot whole-grain toast and marmalade, reading the paper. Suddenly the phone rings. You jump, then reach for the receiver. "Good morning."

"Hi." You recognize the voice of your uncle. He knows you have had some success at the game, but he secretly thinks that he plays better than you. He calls only when he has a tough problem to set you.

While your tea and toast go cold, you write down the North-South cards in today's diagram. Before you can protest about the bidding, your uncle tells you that West leads the heart ace, then the heart king. You ruff and cash two top trumps, East discarding the club jack on the second.

"How would you continue, Nephew?"

At least you have a chance to return to your breakfast while you think. Clearly East has the club ace; otherwise, West would have opened the bidding. You have two major-suit losers and must avoid two club losers. This requires discarding three of your clubs on dummy's diamonds before West can ruff in with the spade jack and lead a club through dummy's king.

There is only one way to do that: Assume West has four diamonds.

"Right, Uncle, I cash the spade queen and diamond king. Then I lead the diamond eight and finesse dummy's 10."

Immediately the line goes dead. Now you know that the 10 wins, allowing you to cash the diamond ace-queen, discarding clubs while West has to follow suit impotently. West ruffs the diamond five, but you have discarded your penultimate club loser. Contract made.