By Phillip Alder

In yesterday's deal, declarer had to guess which finesse to take in a four-spade contract. Today, though, the right finesse should be clear-cut.

You are in three no-trump. West leads the spade six: five, seven, jack. What would you do?

North used a transfer bid, showing five-plus hearts and zero-plus points. After you completed the transfer (you may bid higher only with four-card support for partner's major), North rebid his second suit, showing four-plus diamonds and, now, at least game-going values. Since you had stoppers in the black suits and only two hearts, you continued with three no-trump.

You start with seven top tricks: one spade (given trick one), one heart, four diamonds and one club. You can get at least three more tricks from hearts, and you can probably engineer two extra winners from clubs. Which is the correct suit to attack?

Since East would have played a spade honor if he had one, you should realize that West has the ace-queen hovering over your king-10. So, if East gains the lead, he will push a spade through and they will run the whole suit. This means you must not take the heart finesse. Instead, lead a diamond to dummy's king, then run the club seven.

Here, West wins with his jack and does best to shift to a heart, but you rise with dummy's ace and run the club 10. When that finesse wins (as it should three-quarters of the time), you have nine tricks: one spade, one heart, four diamonds and three clubs.

Copyright 2011, United Feature Syndicate