DAILY BRIDGE CLUB

It’s said that if you harbor bitterness, happiness docks elsewhere. I can add that if you harbor too much self-satisfaction, success will dock elsewhere.

Against four hearts, West leads the ten of diamonds. Say South plays dummy’s jack, and East takes the queen and shifts to a spade: queen, king. If West leads another diamond to the eight and ace, East leads a club, and South must lose a club. Down one.

South must play a low diamond from dummy at Trick One! If West leads another diamond — eight, queen — East shifts to a spade. South takes the ace, leads a trump to dummy and ruffs out East’s ace of diamonds. He leads a trump to dummy, discards his queen of spades on the high diamond, ruffs dummy’s last spade, returns with a trump and leads a club to his nine, endplaying West.

A trump or low-diamond opening lead beats four hearts. Remember this deal the next time you think you’ve got this game figured out. DAILY QUESTION: You hold: ♠ K J 10 9 8 ♥ 5 ◆ 10 9 7 6 ♣ K J 10. Your partner opens one heart, you respond one spade and he bids two clubs. What do you say?

ANSWER: Partner’s minimum change of suit covers a wide range of hands. Though he may have as many as 18 points, you have no descriptive second bid. A bid of 2NT or two diamonds would suggest more strength. You might survive a rebid of two spades, but your best long-run action is a pass.