Many players would open one no trump with the South hand, but with two un-stopped suits, this South chose to open in his five-card major. East-West would have some play for a four-spade contract, but North’s leap to four hearts shut them out of the auction.
The opening spade lead went to dummy’s singleton king and East’s ace. East shifted to a low club, won by declarer with the ace. This was a routine contract until East showed out on the ace of hearts. It looked like there were four certain losers. Needing a miracle of some sort, South led the 10 of diamonds, planning to run it if West played low. West covered with the queen and dummy’s ace won the trick.
A second diamond was led to the jack and the king. South was pleased to see the eight fall from East on this trick. West reverted to clubs, South winning with the king. Declarer cashed the king of hearts and then ruffed a spade to dummy. Dummy’s low diamond was ruffed, and the fall of the nine from East brought a broad smile to declarer’s face. Another spade was ruffed in dummy, and the established seven of diamonds was cashed in order to discard the club loser.
Instead of giving up, South had used his imagination to dream up a lie of the cards that would allow his contract to succeed. Nicely done!
