Contract: NEIL HAYWARD BRIDGE

3NT by South.

Opening Lead: ♠5 is led to East’s ♠K. How do you play this hand?

Recommended Line: Without the spade lead, you could have won in whatever other suit they led, unblocked the clubs in dummy, and returned to hand via the ♠A to cash the rest of the clubs. But it would seem that the early removal of the ♠A has made things extremely tricky. However, there is a simple solution if you think laterally.

This is not necessarily easy to achieve, because extravagance is frowned upon in the real world. Let’s watch commendable extravagance in action. Duck at trick one, play the ♠J at trick two, throwing the ♣K, and, if they lead a third spade, discard the ♣A. Then cash the clubs in your hand, with all obstacles that were blocking the suit, removed. If they stop leading spades after two rounds, cash the ♠A yourself, and pitch the other top club.