Opening lead: jack of spades.

Let’s say you’re West and that the opponents reach three notrump as shown. You lead the jack of spades, which South wins with the ace. Declarer returns the three of hearts, and you naturally follow low. Dummy wins with the queen, whereupon South cashes five clubs and two more spades, scoring nine tricks all told. Only then do you realise that you could have defeated the contract by rising with the ace of hearts at trick two and playing the king and another diamond.

If you are not inclined to be selfcritical, you could promptly dismiss the hand and go on to the next deal. You might also argue that the winning defence is much easier to find when you can see all four hands rather than just two.

But if you study the situation more closely, you discover that going up with the ace of hearts and shifting to the K-5 of diamonds is not as crazy as it seems. In fact, it’s the only sensible thing to do.

It is obvious from the bidding and from South’s play at trick two that he can cash five club tricks at will. He cannot be missing the king or queen of clubs or he would be tackling clubs at once instead of hearts. In addition, declarer has three spade winners whenever he chooses to take them.

South is therefore known to have eight cashable tricks and is trying to steal a ninth at trick two. Your only chance to stop him is to go up with the ace of hearts and shift to diamonds, hoping to hit partner with four or five diamonds headed by the A-Q-10.

The odds are certainly against finding East with this precise holding, but that’s just about the only real chance you have to defeat the contract.

For details about local bridge events, go to the HK Contract Bridge Association website www.hkcba.org [1]