After the weekly duplicate session at the Brigadier Bridge Club there were the normal postmortems about many of the hands that were played that evening. Quite conveniently, Pierre takes out a notepad from his inside pocket and writes out the hand. The pad was leather bound and the front cover displayed the personalised title 'P.E.R.Cent's play problems'.

"Here is the hand for you all to ponder over, East/West being vulnerable."

West                East
S xxxx              S Axx 
H Qxx               H AJx 
D 10xx              D AKxx
C Axx               C Qxx 

W	N	E	S
     		1D	3C1
X    	-    	3NT  	-
-    	-     

1  Weak jump overcall

Pierre started the ball rolling. "From the first trick it was obvious that, unlike the East/West hands, the North/South hands were skewed. The queen won the first trick. There were now six tricks on top, and another could be forced in hearts. Where are the other tricks going to come from?"

"If diamonds or spades were to break 3-3 then an extra trick could be made there," suggested Basher Bates. "Unfortunately there would be no time to set up both suits. However if one suit split 3-3 isn't there always the possibility of a squeeze or an end play for the ninth trick?"

"I'm glad you added that rider to your thoughts Basher" commented

Pierre, "it shows you have not just guessed the answer. Which suit should you try?"

Basher Bates considered the question. "Surely the safest suit to try is diamonds."

"Just my thoughts" added Pierre. "So I tried the ace followed by a small one to the ten, South playing small. North won with the jack and switched to the king of spades, South playing the jack. Ducking this trick allowed North to continue the suit but allowed me a chance to work out the distribution. My ace covered North's queen and South discarded a club. How do you suggest that I continue?"

"You could see if the diamonds break by cashing the king," remarked Wanda.

"The diamonds break 3-3 so your trick count is up to seven and another could come from the heart suit. Between you all, you are doing well," remarked Pierre sarcastically. "If it were possible for several of you to hold 13 cards then you would make a good half of a partnership. However you would probably argue all night long on whose turn it was to bid next.......Getting back to the present problem, what should we do now?"

"After cashing the king and thirteenth diamond, what do the opposition discard?" enquired Wanda.

"South discards a club and North a heart, I also threw a club."

"We can't throw North in with a spade yet because we have lost two tricks and he can cash three spades putting us down. So we must make him part with one. The only way is to play a club to the ace" commented Basher.

"Well deduced" said Pierre. "I played a club to the ace and East was powerless. If he discarded a spade, I would throw him in with a spade. He could now cash his last spade but then he would have the unenviable task of playing hearts. If he discarded a heart, I would have taken the heart finesse and fell his king under my ace. This play would earn three heart tricks, making a total of nine."

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