To play one suit, learn about another

Jason Fried, the founder and CEO of Basecamp (formerly known as 37signals), said, "Make decisions when you have a lot of information to make the decision. Not when you have to guess about what the decision is going to be or use data that doesn't exist yet."

We are looking at the Rule of Seven, which tells a no-trump declarer how long to hold up his only stopper in the suit that the opponents have led. In today's deal, North and South have six spades. Subtracting six from seven tells South to hold up his spade ace at trick one, but to take the second trick. However, is that the right play here?

When you open in no-trump, do not worry - too much! - about an unstopped suit. Here, if South opens one club and West passes (let us assume), North would respond one diamond. What would South do next? He would have no accurate rebid.

South starts with eight top tricks: one spade, three hearts and four diamonds. He needs one club trick to get home. But should he lead low to his jack or to his king? He does not have enough data to answer the question.

South needs to know how the spade suit is splitting. So he should hold up twice and take the third round. Here, declarer learns that West started with five spades. If West also holds the club ace, the contract cannot be made -- South will lose one club and four spades. So declarer must play a club to his king, hoping for the best.

If it transpires that West has only four spades, South will have to guess the clubs. Wish him good luck -- unless you are East or West.

(China Daily 11/01/2014 page20)