JOHNNY SUPREMO READS ALL THE CLUES .........

Well there he was in 3NT with West kicking off with the queen of clubs, which East quickly overtook with the king. Johnny naturally ducked but was forced to win the club continuation.

The play of the clubs clearly suggested that East started out with a king doubleton with West holding 6 to the queen jack. Moreover, the queen seemed to be played with an air of remote hope rather than confident relish.

Johnny could see 8 top tricks with a ninth having to come from spades, but what if the king was off-side after all ? He decided therefore his best move was to run off 4 top diamonds, looking very closely at what both defenders were pitching.

West foolishly discarded two clubs and East threw a spade. This confirmed Johnny's view that West did not hold the king of spades, because if he had he would have certainly held onto his established clubs. Indeed, West was also unlikely to have the queen of hearts, because being a possible entry card to his clubs he would have chosen to discard two useless spades instead. Moreover, with West only having 5 cards in the majors ( to East's eight cards ) the odds favoured East holding both these crucial honours.

The fact that East threw a spade was in keeping with the theory that with both 4 to the king and a four to the queen to protect, it is usually safer to throw from a suit headed by the king.

So Johnny successfully finessed the jack of spades, cashed the Ace and then end played East with a third spade to his King. East exited with a low heart towards dummy's jack to enable Johnny to register a complete top with 3NT+2.