This extraction is without novocain

Ambrose Bierce defined a dentist as a prestidigitator who, putting metal in one’s mouth, pulls coins out of one’s pockets. Now, I guess that would be bills, not coins. In today’s deal, South reached four spades. West led the heart king: four, 10, ace. How should South have proceeded? In the bidding, North transferred to spades, then showed his second suit. Since five clubs did not rate to be best, and with that singleton diamond queen, I would have rebid three no-trump, which South would have corrected to four spades. (Yes, three no-trump is slightly aggressive, but two no-trump would be even more cautious.) At trick two, South led a low trump. West rushed in with his ace, cashed the heart queen and gave his partner a heart ruff. East exited with the diamond king and waited for a club trick to materialise to defeat the contract. Before touching trumps, South should have cashed his diamond ace and ruffed the diamond six on the board. Then, when West won with his spade ace and gave his partner the heart ruff, East would have been endplayed. If East led a diamond, South would have ruffed in his hand and sluffed a club from the board. Then he would have drawn trumps, taken a successful club finesse, played a club to his ace and discarded dummy’s last club on the heart jack. Or, if East shifted to a club, declarer would have won as cheaply as possible and had no club loser. That extraction of East’s safe diamond-king exit card is called a dentist’s coup.