Bridge Night

Matthew Lillard, an actor, director and producer, said, "Now, more than ever, we have the ability to make films for almost nothing and that's broken down all barriers of entry. I think it's a new golden age of filmmaking." Make films for almost nothing? Interesting. In this deal, though, declarer needs to break down the barriers to get to the dummy. How can he do it? South is in six spades, and West leads the heart queen to South's ace.

South opens two clubs, strong, artificial and forcing, then rebids two spades. North responds with two diamonds, typically 0-7 points, then rebids with a double negative, two no-trump or three clubs, according to partnership preference, to show 0-4 points. South, out of ideas, takes a shot at six spades. It is easy to get careless. If South immediately cashes his spade ace, he can no longer make the contract. Yes, the 4-0 break is unlucky, but declarer should be looking at 12 tricks via five spades, two hearts, three diamonds and two clubs.

But to get three diamond tricks, he needs a dummy entry. He must use dummy's spade eight. At trick two, South should lead his spade jack. East ought to play low. But then declarer unblocks (cashes) his two diamond winners before leading the spade 10. If East ducks again, South has no spade loser and is home. Or if East takes the trick and, say, returns a heart, declarer wins in his hand, leads his low spade to dummy's eight, discards his last heart on the diamond queen, ruffs a heart, draws East's final trump and claims.