Problem no. 17, 2003

The problem

For once, we present a typical bridge problem, but that doesn't mean it is easy. In the Swedish trials twenty years ago, I went down in a game I could and should have made. Let's see if you can do better!

	5
	J 10 9 3
	A K 7 2
	K 10 6 5
	Q J 3
	K
	Q J 9 6 5
	A J 7 4

South	West	North	East
1	pass	2	pass
3	pass	3	pass
3 NT	pass	pass	pass

2 was a one-round force with 11-15 HCP; 3 was natural with an unbalanced hand and no four-card major, possibly with longer clubs than diamonds.
   Maybe North should have chosen to play the game in a minor, but as it was I had to play 3 notrump on the opening lead of the ten of spades. East won the first trick with the spade king, the second with the spade ace, and then returned the spade deuce to my queen. West followed with the six and the four.
   When I cashed my diamond winners, both defenders followed twice. Then West discarded the heart deuce (encouraging), the heart five and the spade seven, while East discarded three hearts: the four, the six and the seven.
   If the defenders' remaining spades are 1-1 and one of them has come down to queen singleton in hearts, I can make my contract by leading the heart king. Thinking that was a bad chance, I decided to try to find the queen of clubs instead. Maybe you can do better than I did.
   Therefore: How do you play clubs, and why?

Solution

This is how I reasoned at the table: "The way East-West have discarded, it looks very much like West is 5-3-2-3 and East is 4-5-2-2. The queen of clubs is more likely to be in the hand with three clubs, and if I am right about the distribution, the best play is to finesse through West." So I cashed the club ace and led a low one to the ten – which wasn't the winning play when East had the queen.
    But why was my reasoning fawlty? The answer is that I forgot East. The situation seen from his side will look roughly like this:

	5
	J 10 9 3
	A K 7 2
	K 10 6 5
10		A K x x
		? ? x x x
		x x
		? x