GOREN BRIDGE

We imagine South was anxious to see the dummy. Tim Bourke of Australia has been a prolific supplier of interesting bridge deals for the last two or three decades. We have publicly thanked him several times for deals that have appeared in this space, and we do so again today.

South ruffed the opening ace of diamonds lead in dummy as East contributed the queen. South cashed the ace and king of hearts. A 2-2 heart split would have made it simple, but Tim Bourke never makes it simple. East is known to have started with the jack of hearts and the queen-jack of diamonds. West needed both the queen of spades and the king of clubs to justify his opening bid. Great news, but South still needs an entry to his hand to take advantage of that. Can you spot the solution?

The answer is to lead the jack of spades from dummy! West will surely win and lead another diamond. South can ruff in dummy and draw the last trump. The ace of spades will then drop the 10 and the nine of spades will be an entry to his hand

CRYPTOQUIP

QUOP for the club finesse. Should West duck the queen of spades, South can force an entry to his hand by leading the ace and king of spades. East can ruff, of course, but he cannot prevent an entry to declarer's hand. This play will also work when East started with any four spades. It would fail against a 3-3 split, but so would everything else.

T PKLTDON LURL XEA

FODMOLJA RNNTPX FLMKPX

RJJKA MKNF LK DKPDMOLO,

UO QRF DREXUL FLOOJTPX. Clue: X equals G

PREVIOUS SOLUTION

Yesterday’s Cryptoquip: Being very unhappy about its midair attack dives, the hawk decided to make swooping changes.