Suppose you’re declarer at three notrump and West leads a spade. You duck East’s queen at trick one and take the ten return with the ace. How would you continue?

When the deal occurred, declarer cashed the K-Q-A of clubs, hoping dummy’s ten would become his ninth trick. After the jack failed to fall, South led a heart to the nine, losing to the ten.

West cashed his two spades and exited with a diamond to dummy’s jack. Declarer then led a heart to his queen, but when the finesse failed, the contract was down one.

It is true that declarer was unlucky to go down on the line of play he chose, which offered better than an 80% chance of success. Nevertheless, the fact remains that a different approach was available that was almost 100% certain to succeed.

Once West shows out on the third round of clubs, all of South’s attention should be focused on the best way to try to score a trick with the queen of hearts. One way of going about this is to do exactly what declarer did, first finessing the nine and later the queen. A much better way, though, is to try to force West to lead a heart into the A-Q.

Since it is known after the first two tricks that West has at most four spades, and since he presumably has no longer suit, there is a sure way to compel him to lead a heart without losing five tricks first. After taking the three top clubs, declarer simply cashes the A-K-Q of diamonds and exits with a spade.

In the actual deal, West takes two spade tricks before he has to return a heart into the A-Q. Even if West has the 13th diamond to cash after taking his spades, the heart return on his next play is certain to hand South his ninth trick.

Tomorrow: Test your play.