BRIDGE

I Do not mind my partner's going down if defeat is unavoidable (I do it all the time!), but it irritates me, I hope unnoticably, when they play a defeatist game from the start in a contract that they could have made with a little imagination.

East opened One Club and South overcalled with Two Hearts. West showed his spades and, with some trepidation (for partner was an unknown quantity), as North I raised his hearts. South went on to Four Hearts against which West led the queen of clubs.

East took his ace and switched to his singleton spade. Declarer played low: West took the king of spades, gave his partner a spade ruff, and now the ace of diamonds was the setting trick. This really was a little wooden on South's part. With his paucity of high cards, West was extremely likely to hold a six card suit for his bid and so a ruff was imminent. By far and away the best chance was to find East with a singleton spade and all the possible entries.

Playing on these assumptions, South should win with the ace of spades, cash the ace of trumps and the king of clubs, ruff the winning jack of clubs, and lead a low diamond from the table. East must play low on this and, after winning with his queen, declarer exits with a trump to end- play East. A club gives South a ruff and discard, while a diamond return established dummy's king for the tenth trick.

LOVE ALL: Dealer East

North

] Q 10 6 2

_ 9 7 6 3

+ K 8 7 3

[ 7

West East

] K J 9 8 5 3 ] 4

_ 4 _ K Q

+ 10 9 5 2 + A J 6

[ Q 2 [ A 10 9 8 6 4 3

South

] A 7

_ A J 10 8 5 2

+ Q 4

[ K J 5