QUICK CROSSWORD

Craig said, “At some point, life starts to pass you by and becomes about avoidance. I want to stay clear from that situation, because I don’t like that.”

It is coincidental that I should see his comment the day after I watched him as 007 in “Skyfall.”

How can South stop the sky from falling on his contract in this deal? Against four spades, West starts with his two top hearts.

East wondered about bidding five hearts, but was dissuaded by the adverse vulnerability. In fact, though, five hearts would go down only one, a good sacrifice if four spades is making.

This week, we have been looking at avoidance plays, which on all the deals has involved making sure that East could not win a trick and make a lethal lead through declarer. This is another example.

South starts with three top losers: one heart, one diamond and one club. He should hope to establish dummy's diamond suit. But if he ruffs at trick two and plays two rounds of diamonds, he will go down here, assuming East shifts to a club, which surely he would.

Instead, declarer must make sure that East cannot get on lead. South must discard a diamond at trick two.

Suppose West shifts to a trump. Declarer takes that trick, cashes the diamond ace, ruffs a diamond, crosses to dummy with a trump, ruffs another diamond, returns to the board with a spade and runs the diamonds for his contract.

Finally, did you notice that West would have beaten the contract if he had shifted to a trump at trick two and played another trump when South pitched a diamond on the heart queen? Tough. Copyright United Feature Syndicate ( Asia Features)