South opened a 12-14 point 1NT. North bid a Stayman 2 and South bid his hearts. North bid 2NT showing a minimum. Quite why South bid over 2NT, I don't know - Maybe he was carried away by his 10's! With only 12 points, he should pass. However, North-South arrived at the only possible game contract. 4 would stand no chance with two spades and two Aces to lose.

Against 3NT, West led the 4 to J won by South with Q. Obviously double-dummy the contract is easy. Knock out A, drop the Q and make 4 clubs, 2 diamonds, two hearts and a spade. However, we can't all see through the back of the cards! South has two reasonable plays to make the contract.

His first option is to play for 1 spade, 2 diamonds and six tricks from hearts and clubs. There are various methods of playing the hearts and clubs and the odds are too complicated for me to calculate but I don't think the chances of making 4 club tricks or 3 heart tricks is better than 20% for each suit - and you can only choose one of them! Another problem with this method of play is entries - leading from the right hand at the right time may not be easy!

His second option is to play for 3 spades, 2 diamonds, 2 hearts and 2 clubs. This is a far better option and relies on little more than a 3-2 spade break. It is also a far simplier play to visualise and gives about 70% chance of success.

At trick 2 South should play 9 won by East with J. East plays another diamond which West has to win with A. West can do nothing better than play a third diamond to the K and set up his fourth diamond. South has now lost three tricks and knows that if West has the A then he will be set. He therefore has to duck another spade to East. So he leads a heart won with the J. He then leads a spade, covering whatever West plays. If East doesn't cash his A then he may not make it! South makes 9 tricks and his contract.

What happened at our table! South started correctly by ducking a spade to South. But when he won the third diamond in dummy with the K, he then inexplicably played A and another club finessing his 10 which lost to North's Q. He then managed to lose two more tricks going two off for a resounding bottom!

Contributed by: Birchman 6/07/07