BRIDGE MASTERCLASS

You are playing as West in 5 ♦ , rather than the much easier and better-scoring 3NT, because the opponents interfered with spade bids during the auction. Plan the play after North leads ♠ A, then switches to ♣ J, which was allowed to run to your queen.

You don’t know precisely how the opponents’ values are distributed, but you can assume from the play so far that North has ♠ K and South has ♣ A. Even knowing this, you are still a trick short, and you’ll have to try for a squeeze position for the extra trick. Play off six rounds of trumps, discarding a spade and two hearts from dummy, and noting what the opponents do — especially watching for heart discards, which might establish your suit. Now, when you play your last trump, you can know for certain that both opponents will be in real trouble given that North has ♠ K and South has ♣ A, and one of them must keep three hearts. We will look tomorrow at the most probable five-card ending, whatever the starting distribution might have been.