Wendy Carlos, a composer and innovator in electronic music, said, "A nice blend of prediction and surprise seems to be at the heart of the best art."

Today's deal occurred in a small duplicate. It was interesting to see the results and try to guess what had happened -- it was a bit late for prediction. What do you think of the given auction?

At the time, one East made three clubs with an overtrick. The other three results were two diamonds down one, three diamonds down one and four diamonds down one!

South should open one heart despite three of his 12 points being a singleton king. He has a nice 5-5, and it pays to bid first. This silences West. North responds one spade, East overcalls two clubs, and South rebids two diamonds. Now West should raise to three clubs. He has three decent trumps, a singleton and two potential heart tricks. And North competes to three diamonds.

At this point, East should not pass. His side has at least 10 clubs, so he should be happy to bid four clubs. He might even jump to five clubs, deducing that West is short in diamonds.

East should win 11 tricks in clubs, losing one spade and one diamond. The play in diamonds is much tougher. The best defense is two rounds of clubs. Probably South would ruff, cash dummy's top diamonds, play a spade to his ace, and lead another spade. East wins, cashes the diamond queen, and leads a club, giving a worthless ruff-and-sluff. Now South must be careful to lose only one spade, two hearts, one diamond and one club.

Be aggressive with a good trump fit, especially with short side-suits.

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