Bridge

TODAY'S HAND comes from the book You Have To See This, by Andrew Diosy and Linda Lee, (Master Point Press of Canada, pounds 7.99). While trying to select just one suitable hand I kept finding so many fascinating deals that it remained at my bedside for ages!

Playing 5-card majors, South opens One Spade, West overcalls with Two Diamonds, North bids Three Spades and South game.???

Against Four Spades, West cashes his ace and king of hearts, then switches to the king of spades. At first glance this looks like good news - no trump losers. Now it becomes necessary to set up club tricks in dummy for diamond discards. ??? That's the bad news - dummy doesn't have the entries to both set up and utilise the clubs.

If you take the king of spades with the ace (taking care to preserve your two of spades in hand) you can draw the trump jack with the queen in hand, cash the ace of clubs and cross to dummy by overtaking ]2 with ]5 to run the queen of clubs. East covers, you ruff, but there is no further entry to dummy to cash the clubs.

To make this contract it is essential to duck the king of spades. Win whatever West returns in hand, cash the ace of clubs, then enter dummy with the ace of spades and play the queen of clubs for a ruffing finesse. You still have your carefully preserved two of spades to re-enter dummy and discard your losing diamonds on the winning clubs.