BRIDGE
South’s sequence showed 22-23 points, so North had to raise despite his paltry values. East won the opening spade lead with his ace and returned the three. South reasoned that the spades were probably splitting 5-2 as East would have returned a different spade had he started with three. It was possible that East started with four spades, but then the spade suit was not a threat to his contract.
Accordingly, South won the second spade with his king. He could bang down the ace and king of diamonds, hoping for the queen to drop, but that was against the odds and the contract would fail if the queen did not drop. There would be no entry to dummy’s queen of hearts, which he would need if there were only four diamond tricks.
South decided that his best chance was that East held the queen of diamonds. He cashed the ace and king of hearts to unblock the suit, then led the nine of diamonds and overtook it with dummy’s 10. East won with his queen and shifted to a club. South rose with his ace, crossed to dummy with a diamond to the eight, and cashed the queen of hearts. Three more diamond tricks gave him the nine tricks that he needed. Nicely played!