You can overruff, but should you?

“To be or not to be: that is the question, whether ‘tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune ...” begins a well-known soliloquy, but the letters can be rearranged to produce: “In one of the Bard’s best-thought-of tragedies, our insistent hero, Hamlet, queries on two fronts about how life turns rotten.” (Who worked that out?) In today’s deal, you are faced with finesses on two fronts. After West leads a low diamond, how would you play in both six spades and seven spades? After North recovers from the shock of hearing his partner open two spades, he ought to use two doses of Blackwood to find out if South has a minor-suit king. If he does not, North signs off in six spades or six no-trump; if he does, North bids seven spades or seven no-trump. (In no-trump, North might gain from a minor-suit lead. In six spades, South needs one minor-suit finesse to work. So, he should finesse in diamonds at trick one. If it loses, he wins East’s return, draws trumps and tries the club finesse. In seven spades, though, the diamond finesse is a red herring. Even if it wins, declarer still needs the club finesse to succeed. And if the club finesse is working, there are three club tricks available, to go with six spades, three hearts and one diamond. So, South should win with dummy’s diamond ace, draw trumps ending in hand and run the club jack. If it wins, the opponents will feel that declarer’s fortune was outrageous.