Bridge

South avoided one trap on this deal but missed a subtle play that could hardly have cost and which would have taken care of the particular distribution he met.

South opened One Heart and North raised to Two Hearts. Displaying commendable restraint (like his partner) East passed and South's jump to game ended the auction. West led the 4J against Four Hearts and everything looked straightforward to declarer. As long as the spades broke 3-2, he would be able to discard a losing club on #J and so restrict his losers to two spades and a diamond.

South won the lead with 4A and followed with !K. Good! No tiresome trump break, he thought. He continued with !Q and West showed out. Declarer now realised that he could not afford to draw a third round of trumps immediately before driving out #K, as the only entry left to dummy would be with a fourth round of hearts. Then he would run out of trumps before he could establish a long spade.

No problem, thought South, and he played off #A and #Q before drawing the last trump. West won with his king and led a third diamond for East to ruff, so killing dummy's winner. South was able to over-ruff but now had to lose two spades and a club as well as #K.

The best play, not so obvious, was to lead #Q on the first round of diamonds. West wins, but cannot stop South from playing off #A and crossing to dummy, drawing the last trump as he does so, and taking a club discard on the #J.

Game all; dealer South

North

48 6 5 2

!A 10 8 7

#J 9 2

28 2

West East

4K J 10 4Q 4

!3 !9 6 4

#K 7 6 5 4 3 #10 8

2Q 6 5 2K J 10 9 7 3

South

4A 9 7 3

!K Q J 5 2

#A Q

2A 4