BRIDGE

South dealer.

North-South vulnerable.

It is sometimes said that luck is a time when preparation meets opportunity. For an excellent example, consider this deal where South was in six hearts and West led the spade king.

If you study all four hands, you might conclude that declarer must go down one. If he attempts the club finesse, the queen loses to the king, and because of the unlucky diamond division, he eventually loses a trick in that suit also.

Bad luck all around, you could easily say, but the fact is that the actual South made the contract anyway. He took the king of spades with the ace, then cashed the A-K of trump and the KQ of diamonds, exposing the 4-1 diamond division.

Undaunted by this development, he ran all his remaining trumps to produce this position: At this point, declarer was certain that he knew three of West's last four cards. They had to be the queen of spades (judging from his opening lead of the king) as well as the J-9 of diamonds, revealed earlier when dummy's K-Q were cashed.

So when South next led the club deuce and West produced the ten, declarer knew exactly what to do. He put up the ace and returned the jack of spades, on which he discarded the eight of clubs. West won with the queen but was forced to lead a diamond into South's A-10, and the slam was home.

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