Bridge

Saturday's bridge...

WHEN you have a choice of lines look for the one that will keep the danger hand off lead.

Are 12 points enough for responder to force to game? Here, when East volunteered a second bid, West thought his intermediates justified bidding 3NT. North led the four of spades to dummy's queen. How would you plan the play?

You have six Sure Tricks. You can almost certainly develop three more in clubs, but you will probably have to lose the lead twice to do so. If you lose a trick to South he will play a spade through your ace-jack, establishing at least three spade tricks for the defence. But if you lose the first trick to North he cannot continue spades without giving you a third trick in that suit. This makes South the Danger Hand for the time being; once spades are established both opponents will be dangerous. So how do you tackle clubs?

North's overcall on a none-too-impressive suit suggests that he is likely to have the ace of clubs, so you should start by playing a club to the king. When that scores you have a choice of plays. You might make three diamond tricks if the diamond honours are split. Say North has Kx or Qx:

lead the jack from dummy, running it if South does not cover, then finesse the ten of diamonds to pick up South's honour. If North has Kxx or Qxx start by playing low to the ten so that South's honour drops under the ace next time. This line requires you to guess the distribution, and will fail if North has both honours.

An alternative line is to continue clubs by leading a low card from dummy. If North has to win the trick with Ax or AQx, your contract is assured. Given the guesswork required for the diamond play this line is much more attractive. The low club fails only when North has Axx, or all four missing clubs.