What might at first seem to have been a brilliantly played hand may not, upon further analysis, have been anything more than the exercise of plain common sense.

Take this case where South was in four spades and the defense started with three rounds of hearts. Declarer ruffed the third heart with dummy’s nine and cashed the K-Q of trump, discovering to his horror

that West had two seemingly certain trump tricks. Furthermore, he had a club loser to worry about.

But South made the contract despite his five apparent losers, and it all came about in a perfectly reasonable way. He began by playing four rounds of diamonds ending in his hand, leaving this position with South needing to win three of the last four tricks:

South realized from the earlier plays that West had started with exactly five spades, three hearts and four diamonds, and therefore only one club. So, when he led a club and West followed with the deuce known to be West’s only club South went up with the ace and returned a club from dummy. East played the king, but West was forced to ruff his partner’s trick and return a trump into South’s A-10! Declarer thus telescoped three losers into one and so made the contract.

Tomorrow: >> Famous Hand.

Steve Becker