BRIDGE

THIS is a defensive brilliancy found by Peter Weichsel at the table. Be honest - even with a sight of all four hands, can you see how the defenders managed to defeat South's contract of Six Spades?

North opened One Diamond and rebid 1NT over South's response of One Spade. South's next move of Two Diamonds was an artificial enquiry and several more rounds of bidding led to the spade slam. En route North had cue-bid his ace of hearts and East had doubled to suggest a lead. So West started dutifully with his five of hearts.

After winning with dummy's ace, declarer unblocked his ace of diamonds, crossed to the table with the king of trumps, and took a ruffing finesse in diamonds to discard his losing heart. All over, you think? West takes his king and now declarer can draw trumps and discard all of his losing clubs on the established diamonds.

Hold it! Without blinking an eyelid, Weichsel allowed the king of diamonds to win. Unsuspectingly, declarer repeated the ruffing finesse, discarding one of his clubs. Suddenly West came to life - he finally took his king and led a fourth round of diamonds which East was able to ruff low, so killing one of dummy's winners.

With only one discard still to come, declarer had to do something about his losing club but, when he tried ruffing the third round with dummy's nine of trumps, East was able to overruff and defeat the contract.