HOW TO ESCAPE WITH YOUR TRICKS

An expert’s rate of play is inversely proportional to the chances of his contract. If he is doomed to defeat, he slows down, often to a standstill. (Sitstill?) But if the contract has some chance, the expert gets on with the game.

Cover the East-West hands in today’s diagram. South is in six spades. West leads the trump three: seven, eight, 10. How should declarer continue?

North’s one-no-trump response was forcing for one round. His subsequent jump to four spades showed a limit raise in spades (about 11 support points) with three trumps. South decided that was sufficient to bid a slam.

Things look grim. Dummy has all of those heart honors that would have been much more useful in diamonds. South must concede at least one diamond, and also has a potential club loser. East did well to retain his spade jack at trick one, but you lead the spade king and overtake with the ace, hoping the jack will appear now, which would create another dummy entry with the spade nine. Unlucky — the jack lives. Now declarer leads the heart king and ruffs away East’s ace. After drawing the last trump, what should South do next?

With no dummy entry, he has only one hope left: He leads the diamond king from his hand. Finally some luck — the diamond queen is a singleton. The diamond 10 becomes a guaranteed dummy entry, and the slam is home.

Afterward, West says that next time he will lead the diamond ace and another diamond. Yeah, right!

CLOSE TO HOME: By John McPherson