BRIDGE PUZZLE

HARD WORK Both vulnerable. East deals. Opening lead: Three of ♣ This looks like a friendly lie of the cards for South — 3-3 hearts with the king onside and 3-3 spades with the jack onside. To take advantage of that, however, South needed to lead from dummy several times. There wasn’t even one entry to dummy, unless the defense made a mistake in the diamond suit, so South had to make eight tricks from his own hand while enlisting some help from the opponents. East won the opening club lead and returned a club to the queen and king. South ruffed the club continuation and led the king of diamonds, ducked by West as East gave the appropriate count signal. West correctly won the second diamond but was end-played. A diamond would have allowed South to get home by leading a spade to his 10, so West exited with the 10 of hearts- low, low, jack. South led the king of spades from his hand, and East ducked or he would have been end-played. East couldn’t escape his fate, however, as South, continued with the ace and another heart to East — the second end-play. East exited with his last club. Had South discarded a heart and ruffed in dummy, there would have been no spade in dummy to lead and the defense would have come to two trump tricks. Instead, South ruffed in his hand with the seven of spades and over-ruffed with dummy’s eight. Declarer shed his last heart on the queen of diamonds and, in the two-card ending, South scored his queen of spades en passant. Wow! Two end-plays, an under-ruff, and a trump coup just to make two spades.