Bridge

Opening lead — nine of diamonds.

Assume you get to four hearts on the bidding shown and West leads a diamond. You win East’s queen with the ace and return the queen of hearts. East takes the king, cashes the king of diamonds, then plays the ace and another trump. You win and must try to avoid a spade loser.

There are two obvious ways of doing this. One is to hope for a 3-3 club division; the other is to fall back on a spade finesse if the clubs do not divide 3-3.

But there is also a third possibility that is not so obvious. It is based on the fact that East, who opened the bidding with one notrump — thereby disclosing his name, rank and serial number — must have the king of spades for his bid, so that a spade finesse cannot possibly succeed.

The proper line of play is to start by cashing two more rounds of trump, producing this position:

When you now play the seven of hearts, discarding the queen of spades from dummy, East is in trouble. Whatever he elects to do, you make the rest of the tricks.

In effect, by dismissing the spade finesse as a possibility, you bank your hopes on finding the clubs divided 3-3 or East holding more than three clubs. In either case, you are sure to make the contract.