Do your best and hope for the best

Herbert Rappaport, who was an Austrian-Soviet screenwriter and film director, said, “I hope that while so many people are out smelling the flowers, someone is taking the time to plant some.” Bridge players, usuallydeclarers,sometimes hope that the defenders are too busy smelling the roses to find the killing defence. In this deal, South is in three no-trump. West leads a fourth-highest diamond two, and East plays his six under dummy’s seven. What should happen after that? I agree with South’s opening bid. He was right to add one point for the excellent five-card club suit. Then North used a textbook transfersequence.South starts with eight top tricks: two hearts, one diamond (trick one) and five clubs. At trick two, he should lead a diamond straight back. (Here, because it looks as though West has the diamond ace, probably declarer should win initially with his diamond nine and return the three.) Now the spotlight falls on East (especially if South leads the diamond 10 from the dummy at trick two). He must win with his ace and shift to the spade two, having placed the spade ace with his partner. Then the defenders can take one diamond and four spades. Note that West can help by dropping a dramatic diamond jack at trick two, his highest card signalling for the highest-ranking suit. At one table, South unwisely played three rounds of hearts. East cleverly unblocked his queen underdummy’sking,soWest won trick four with his heart jack. Getting the message, he cashed the spade ace and played another round for down one.