At first glance, it might seem that South must go down one in four spades on this deal from a team contest. Because of the 5-0 spade split, he appears destined to lose two hearts, a diamond and a spade. But declarer made his contract with careful play, and there wasn’t anything the defenders could do about it after West made the normal lead of the club ten.

South covered the ten with the jack and took East’s queen with the ace. Declarer then played the king of clubs, ruffed a club in dummy and cashed the king of spades, disclosing the horrendous trump break. After pausing to catch his breath, South took stock.

He could count five tricks in the side suits, including the club ruff already taken in dummy. If he could score all four of the spades remaining in his hand, he would have 10 tricks. Accordingly, he adopted a line of play that virtually assured this objective.

At trick five, he led dummy’s last spade to his jack and then made the key play of ducking a diamond. East won with the jack and switched to the queen of hearts, but declarer was in full control.

He won the heart with the ace, led a diamond to the ace, ruffed a diamond with the spade nine and exited with a heart. Regardless of who won the heart or what was returned, South could not be stopped from eventually scoring his A-10 of spades, and the contract was home.

Note that if declarer plays the ace of diamonds on the first round of the suit, he goes down against best defense. At some point, he will be forced to ruff a diamond or a heart in his hand after the defenders have collected three tricks in the red suits, and he will then have to lose a trick to East’s queen of spades.

Tomorrow: Imaginative defense.

King Features Syndicate Inc.