The defenders have advantages: They get to make the opening lead (which, admittedly, may be a burden instead), and they can see whether declarer’s key suits will break well or badly and whether his finesses will win. A common deceptive maneuver is to let declarer win his first try of a repeatable finesse.

Today’s West leads the deuce of spades against 3NT: jack, king, ace. At Trick Two South leads a diamond to dummy’s jack.

NINE TRICKS

If East takes the king, the defense cashes three spades and leads a club. Declarer takes the ace and runs the diamonds. At the end, he leads a heart to his ace and back to dummy’s jack — winning. He has nine tricks.

But say East casually lets the jack of diamonds win. South could still make 3NT, but he will come to his ace of hearts to repeat the diamond finesse. Then East wins, and since South has no more entries to his hand, he will lose a heart at the end.

DAILY QUESTION

You hold: ? J 5 ? K J 6 ? A Q J 3 2 ? A J 5. South in today’s deal opened 1NT with this hand: 15 to 17 points. Do you agree with his evaluation?

ANSWER: I don’t, though North’s hand lay at the top of his range. His good five-card suit added something of value. Still, North had four jacks and no intermediate spot cards. With 95,KJ5,AQJ104,AQ10, I would upgrade and open one diamond, intending to bid 2NT over a response of one spade.