THE RECOMMENDED LINE WORKS ALSO

Abba Eban, an Israeli politician who was raised and educated in England, said, “History teaches us that men and nations behave wisely once they have exhausted all other alternatives.”

This is the same deal as yesterday. The original scribe claimed that after the trump lead, South could not make four spades if he ruffed two hearts in the dummy. As demonstrated yesterday, that would have worked. However, what was the alternative line that the author recommended?

South was right to open one spade despite having only 11 high-card points. He had the majors, two aces and an easy rebid. He had a seven-loser hand (two spades, two hearts, one diamond and two clubs) should partner have a fit for one of the majors. North described a game-force with threecard spade support. South signed off in four spades with his minimum. (In two-over-one game-forcing, North would have rebid two spades, and South would have jumped to game.)

The author proposed establishing dummy’s diamond suit. Take the first trick in hand and play the diamond 10. Suppose West wins and leads his second trump. Now comes a play that I mentioned last week: a ruffing finesse. Declarer runs dummy’s diamond queen and discards a heart from his hand (not a low club, but interestingly the club ace is OK!).

West wins and shifts to a heart. South takes the trick with his ace and leads a low club to dummy's jack. East wins with the king and returns a heart, but declarer trumps in the dummy, ruffs a diamond, draws West’s last trump, crosses to the club queen and runs the diamonds. Copyright United Feature

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