“Change is not made without inconvenience, even from worse to better.” - Richard Hooker

On today’s deal from the Cavendish Pairs 2007, the easiest game is three no-trump, the call that North should make in response to a weak two spades by South.

By contrast, against four spades John Diamond led the diamond 10. South finessed, drew trumps, then led a club to dummy’s jack. Jim Krekorian won and exited with a diamond. South now eliminated clubs, then diamonds. In the four-card ending, with three hearts and a spade in both hands, he led a low heart. Diamond’s careful play of the heart nine doomed South to down one.

After the diamond lead, declarer surely does best to finesse, then strip off diamonds while drawing trumps. Now he leads a club to dummy’s queen and East’s king. East’s only chance is to return a low club smoothly. Now if declarer assumes West has the missing club honor, he will follow the losing variation described above.

How about a five-club sacrifice by West? On the auction shown, Roy Welland ruffed the opening spade lead, tried a club to the nine, and claimed 11 tricks. Actually, five clubs still requires a little care. After the same start, a careless declarer led the diamond jack at trick three, and Bob Hamman as North ducked. Nicely played. Declarer could now ruff a spade to hand to take one heart finesse, but could not repeat the heart finesse and had to go down one. (Had declarer led a diamond to the 10 instead, this defensive position could not have arisen.)

Bid with the aces

South holds:

Answer: Although you could make a takeout double here, rebidding one no-trump to show 18-19 looks a lot closer to the truth. Yes, you might miss a 4-4 spade fit, but doubling may get you to clubs when you would rather not be there, since that call would guarantee at least four clubs.