This deal occurred in the final of the 1992 U.S Bridge Championship. The declarer was Michael Rosenberg, who reached three notrump after his partner had used a variation of Stayman.

West, Norman Kay, who knew by inference that each opponent held a major suit, elected to lead a low club, which proved quite helpful to declarer. Even so, it still left Rosenberg with a lot of guessing to do.

Rosenberg took East’s jack with the king and led the four hearts to dummy’s jack. East, Edgar Kaplan, won with the queen and returned a club to Kay’s ace. Kay exited with the club nine to South’s ten.

Rosenberg now led his remaining heart and misguessed again when West followed low, losing the nine to East’s ten. Declarer won Kaplan’s club return with the eight as Kay discarded a spade.

Still in search of his ninth trick, Rosenberg cashed the spade ace and then played the K-Q-A of diamonds, hoping for a 3-3 division. But when Kay discarded a heart on the third diamond (reducing himself to the heart ace and Q-10 of spades), Rosenberg was at the crossroads. With the K-J-4 of spades in his hand and the spade eight and K-5 of hearts in dummy, he had to decide whether to try a spade finesse or attempt an endplay.

Rosenberg reviewed what he had learned to this point. Kay had led from a three-card club suit and had started with two diamonds, marking him with eight cards in the majors. Kay was thus a favorite to have started with four (or five) spades, increasing the likelihood that he held the queen, so the spade finesse was not likely to work.

So, Rosenberg led a heart from dummy, forcing Kay to win with the ace and lead a spade into the K-J, and the game was home.

At the other table, North became declarer at three notrump. Without the helpful club lead, he had little chance, and he finished down one, losing 10 IMPS.

Tomorrow: High-class defense.

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