BRIDGE MASTERCLASS

You are South, declarer in 6 ♥ , against which West leads the ♣ Q. Plan the play.

YOU win the first trick with the ♣ A and draw trumps, which happen to fall in two rounds. The suit that is worrying you, though, is spades. That club is a loser, but can you avoid a spade loser as well?

You can’t be sure, as you have no cast-iron way of playing spades, but you can avoid touching them yourself and force the defence to do this for you, in which case you may be able to judge where the missing honours lie.

To do this, you must eliminate the hand, which means cashing three diamonds. You then play your losing club, which doubtless West will win, though it doesn’t really matter which defender is on lead.

Whichever it is, he will have to give you a ruff-discard, which would make your contract certain with no further worries, or lead a spade, giving you at least a chance of judging who has the spade honours.