NEIL HAYWARD BRIDGE

Contract: 3NT by South

Opening Lead: ♦3. Diamonds break 4-3. They take four unavoidable diamond tricks. East discards a discouraging heart at trick four. What are your plans?

Recommended Line: You can afford a spade discard from dummy, but your choice of discard from hand is crucial. Some players will think a 3-3 spade break is “normal”, so, here, they would keep all the spades, and feel hard done by if they don’t break 3-3. However, the 3-3 spade break you are hoping for occurs only a fraction more than one-third of the time. A successful club finesse is a better proposition: it is a 50-50 chance. So, to be rational, and stay in line with the cold reality of what statistics tell us, discard a spade from hand on the fourth diamond. Incidentally, the club finesse might be better than 50-50 in the context of this hand. This is because the quoted 50-50 odds are valid in the abstract. But, here, we are not considering the clubs in theoretical terms. There is evidence to consider. If East held the ♣K, an encouraging club might have been discarded at trick four, so that adds to your hopes that the club finesse will succeed.