Entry problems are a critical factor in the play of many hands. To be in the right place at the right time may be the key to the outcome, and a declarer who ignores this is bound to fail more often than he should.

Take this case where declarer might easily go wrong — and, in fact, did. He got to five diamonds as shown, and West led a heart.

South won, drew trump, played a spade to the king and continued with a spade to the jack. The finesse succeeded, but declarer went down one. He could not repeat the spade finesse for lack of a further entry to dummy. and he eventually lost two clubs and a spade.

South would have made the contract had he led a low spade from dummy at trick two and finessed. After drawing trump, he could then have crossed to the king of spades to repeat the finesse, and so would not have lost a spade trick.

The hand demonstrates the importance of planning the play. South’s only problem from the start is to avoid a spade loser, and this should dominate his thinking from the moment dummy appears. How best to attain this goal is something to solve at once and cannot be postponed until after the opposing trumps are drawn.

Percentagewise, it is best to assume that East has the queen of spades. To play West for the queen and finesse through him will be successful only if the spades are divided 3-3, while finessing against East will win whenever East has three, four or five spades to the queen.

Once the decision is made to play East for the queen, it is clear that a first-round finesse should be taken at trick two to guard against the possibility that East has four or five spades.

Tomorrow: A stitch in time saves nine.

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