I usually kibitz my club’s penny Chicago game, but if an interesting deal arises in the afternoon duplicate, I follow it around the room to see what happens at several tables.

In today’s deal, the contract was usually four spades. At many tables West led a heart, the suit East bid. Declarer took the A-Q, ruffed his last heart in dummy, picked up the trumps with a finesse and lost two diamonds. Making five with no stress.

At three tables, West found a diamond lead. East took the queen and ace and gave West a ruff. West then led a heart: deuce, king, ace. One South then cashed the ace of trumps and queen of hearts, ruffed a heart, returned a trump ... and huddled. Eventually, he put up his king — and went down when West discarded.

At the other two tables, South made the game. At one table, after South took the ace of hearts and the ace of trumps, he led a club to the ace and ruffed a club. When East discarded, South had a distributional count. He knew West had held six clubs, three hearts and two diamonds, so two spades. West had no spades left, so South took the queen of hearts, ruffed his last heart in dummy and confidently led a trump to his jack.

At the third table, South relied on psychology. He assumed if West had held Q-x-x in trumps — probably a trump trick anyway — he would have led a heart, not a diamond to try for a ruff. After South took the A-Q of hearts, cashed the ace of trumps and ruffed his last heart in dummy, he led a trump to his jack. He expected the finesse to win, and so it did.

There may be more than one way to bring home a contract intelligently.

East dealer

N-S vulnerable

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