BRIDGE

West dealer. North-South vulnerable.

The bidding:

West North East South Pass 1C 21 3 NT Opening lead three of spades.

Sometimes a play favoured by the percentages should not be made because declarer has a sure thing if he goes against the odds.

This seeming paradox arose in today’s deal where South wound up in three notrump after a preemptive two-heart overcall by East. West led the three of spades, and two things were immediately apparent: West obviously had no hearts and also was almost surely leading from a five-card spade suit (assuming he was leading fourth-best, the only card lower than the three was the missing deuce).

Declarer won East’s ten with the jack and mulled over the situation. The easiest way to gain a ninth trick would be to lead a heart from dummy toward his hand. But this was not feasible, since East would go up with the ace and return a spade through the K-5 to sink the contract.

South therefore decided that his best chance was to score a trick with dummy's ten of clubs. Before broaching that suit, though, he first cashed four diamond tricks, discarding a heart from dummy as East discarded two hearts.

The play of the diamonds revealed that West had started with four of them, marking him with four clubs as well (and East with three). The odds thus became 4-to-3 that West held the jack, so a finesse of the ten on the second round seemed in order. But as can be seen, this would not have met with great success.

However, South realized that if he simply cashed the A-K-Q of clubs instead of finessing, he had a sure thing regardless of who had the club jack. Accordingly, he took the three top clubs, dropped East’s jack and so made the contract. And what if West had held the jack? In that case, declarer would next have played the ten of clubs from dummy. West would win with the jack but would be forced to lead a spade, handing South the king of spades as his ninth trick. (c)2022 King Features Syndicate Inc.