BRIDGE

This week’s deals have treated end plays: giving an opponent the lead in a position where anything he does will help you. To test yourself, cover the East-West cards. Against four hearts, West leads the queen of clubs. Can you spot a way to almost assure your game?

The actual declarer failed. He took the ace of clubs and led a trump, finessing with his queen. West won, cashed a club and exited with a spade to dummy. Declarer then led a second trump. When East showed out, declarer took his ace and tried to guess the queen of diamonds. He went wrong, finessing against East, and went down.

South succeeds with an end play. At Trick Two he leads a trump to his ace. When both defenders play low, South takes the A-K of spades, ruffs dummy’s last spade and exits with a club.

The defender who wins must help declarer. A diamond exit guesses the queen for him, a club or a spade concedes a ruff-sluff, and a trump lead limits declarer’s losers to one in that suit.

Question: You hold: ♠ A K3 ♥ 752 ♦ K10752 ♣ A4. You open one diamond, your partner bids two clubs, you rebid two diamonds and he tries two spades. What do you say? Answer: Partner’s bid of a new suit is forcing; you will seldom stop short of game on this auction. You can’t bid 2NT with no heart stopper. A raise to three spades is possible, though you would prefer a fourth trump. Bid three clubs, which has the merit of conserving bidding room.