How can you get over there enough?

Orson Welles said, “My doctor told me to stop having intimate dinners for four. Unless there are three other people.”

A bank manager told today’s declarer to stop throwing in the towel without first finding a third dummy entry.

How should South play in seven no-trump after West leads the diamond nine?

Before we get to that, what does South’s sequence mean?

To be honest, I cannot remember seeing that at the table. South showed a balanced hand with — approximately! — 28-30 points. North, unable to use Gerber or Blackwood to ask for aces and kings, understandably leapt to seven no-trump. (Regular readers will know that I would respond two no-trump with that North hand. Then South could jump to four clubs, Gerber asking for aces, followed by five clubs for kings. When North denies a king, South can stop in six no-trump.)

South has only 10 top tricks: four spades, one heart, two diamonds and three clubs. To get up to 13, he needs to find East with the heart king and collect four heart tricks. But that might require taking three finesses in the suit, which would need three dummy entries — and they are available if spades break 3-2.

Cash the spade king, then overtake the spade queen with dummy’s ace. (If someone shows out, hope East has at most kingthird of hearts.) In the dummy, you take a heart finesse.

Now overtake the spade 10 with dummy’s jack and repeat the heart finesse. Finally, lead your carefully preserved spade three to dummy’s four, take a third heart finesse and claim.