BRIDGE

The bidding:

East South West North 41 5 C All Pass Opening lead — ten of spades.

Let's say that in a given hand your partner opens the bidding one spade, to which you respond one notrump, and that he next bids four spades.

It is certainly reasonable to assume that your partner has more than four or five spades. True, this is only an inference -- anything is possible in the abstract sense. But your reasoning should not be based on the assumption that your partner is on an outing from the local booby hatch.

Applying this everyday principle to today's hand, South should assume, from East's opening four-heart bid and West's opening lead of a spade, that West does not have a heart to lead.

When South wins the spade lead with the ace and East plays the king, South can also logically conclude that East started with either the singleton king or the KQ doubleton. When declarer then ruffs a spade at trick two and East shows out, South confirms that West started with seven spades.

When declarer next draws three rounds of trump, he learns that West started with two clubs. This enables him to conclude that West's original distribution was 7-0-4-2.

Accordingly, South cashes the ace of diamonds, then overtakes the queen with the king and leads the ten of diamonds, discarding a heart. West takes the diamond with the jack and leads the queen of spades, on which South again discards a heart.

West then has no choice but to return a spade or a diamond, allowing declarer to discard his last heart on one of dummy's established winners, so South makes five clubs. In actuality, declarer does nothing really miraculous to make the contract; he merely takes advantage of the inferences that are available from both the bidding and the subsequent play.

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