The single piece of good news

George S. Kaufman, who, inter alia, wrote some musicals for the Marx Brothers, said, “I understand your new play is full of single entendre.”

In today's deal, North should sing loudly about a single feature of his hand. After he opens one diamond and South responds one spade, what should North rebid?

North's hand is worth game, but there is a better bid than four spades. He should jump to four clubs. This is a splinter bid showing four-card spade support, game-going values and a singleton (or void) in clubs — near-perfect!

Suddenly, South sees that he has no club losers. He might jump straight to six spades, but perhaps he should content himself with five spades, which North ought to raise with such good red suits — South must have excellent trumps to be slamming without all of those red honors.

How did declarer plan the play after West led the spade jack?

South saw that he needed trumps to be 3-2 and to have some luck in the red suits. However, there were transportation difficulties, and he did not want to rely on a red-suit finesse.

Declarer spotted a surprisingly good line. He won the first trick with the spade ace, cashed the club ace and ruffed a club. The next card he called for surprised everyone at the table, particularly East: dummy's diamond 10. East took this with his queen and returned a second trump, but declarer won in his hand, ruffed another club, cashed the top hearts, ruffed a heart, drew West's last trump and claimed. He took four spades, two hearts, three diamonds, one club and two club ruffs.