IS LOSING FROM ONE HAND ENOUGH?

Elie Wiesel, who wrote so compellingly about the Holocaust, said in an interview, "Writing is not like painting where you add. It is not what you put on the canvas that the reader sees. Writing is more like a sculpture where you remove, you eliminate in order to make the work visible. Even those pages you remove somehow remain."

It might be useless removing a loser from the dummy if you remain with a loser in your hand. In this deal, how should South try to make six spades after West leads the club king?

South, after starting with a strong, artificial two clubs and receiving a negative reply, might have jumped to three spades, guaranteeing a solid suit.

But if North had, say, jacksixth of hearts, that could have been the best trump suit. After North showed diamond length and some 4-7 points, South bid what he hoped he could make.

South had 11 winners and two club losers. But as dummy luckily had only two hearts, declarer's plan was to discard one of dummy's club losers on the third heart, then to ruff his last club on the board. So, declarer won the first trick with the club ace (though he could have ducked here), cashed those three heart tricks, discarding a club from the dummy, and conceded a club trick. South won the next trick and ruffed his last club with dummy's spade eight, so there was no risk of an overruff by East.

After drawing trumps and claiming, declarer thanked his partner for having the spade eight and West for not having a trump to lead at trick one.