THE COMPANION DEAL LOOKS SO SIMILAR

In yesterday's column, I mentioned "On the Other Hand" by David Bird and Larry Cohen (Master Point Press). It contains 100 pairs of deals. Each looks like an identical twin, but actually they are fraternal twins, each requiring a different play technique.

In today's deal, South is in four spades. West leads the heart king. East, hoping his partner has only five hearts, overtakes with the ace and returns the eight. West wins with the jack and continues with the queen. After ruffing, how should South continue?

Today's spade suit is identical to yesterday's club suit, when South was in six notrump. Then, having lost one trick immediately, declarer had to play the club suit without loss. The right play was a firstround finesse, which won when one of the four low singletons was offside and lost only to a singleton queen offside.

Is it correct to first-round spade here?

In the auction, South's balancing two-spade jump overcall is not weak but intermediate. It shows a respectable sixor seven-card suit and about a king more than a minimum opening bid.

In isolation, a firstround finesse is correct. But bridge has survived for so long because you can rarely consider any problem in isolation. You must take all of the known facts into account.

Here, East passed over his partner's opening bid, thus denying 6 high-card

bridge

DOWN 2 Poisonous 3 Charitable donations 4 Imperfect 5 Mythical goatlike man 6 Large tent 8 Toaster (anag) 11 Woodland 13 Rugby formation 15 Keyboard instrument 16 Oversupply

take a finesse points. But he has already produced the heart ace. He cannot also have the spade queen. South should cash his top spades and hope that the queen drops. If she doesn't, partner overbid again!

Copyright United Feature Syndicate (Asia Features)