Donatella Versace said, “I have worked with wool all my life as a designer. There’s so much more to it than knitwear – it’s an amazingly versatile material and can be used in so many different ways from chic to rustic.”

When declarer is in trouble, he should try to pull the wool over the opponents’ eyes, in the hope that they will misdefend.

What sheepish play should South try in this deal? He is in three notrump. West leads the spade six, and declarer takes East’s 10 with his king.

This was not, per se, a deal in which using Stayman had a major effect. If North had just raised to three no-trump, West would still have led the spade six. The only drawback of North’s employing Stayman was that the defenders knew South had started with only two or three spades.

Declarer began with eight top tricks: one spade (trick one), three diamonds and four clubs. He needed to get a heart trick.

South adopted his best line. He played a club to the dummy and called for the heart jack, trying to look like someone about to finesse East for the queen. If a sleepy East had thought that, he would have played second hand low and the contract would have made. But an awake East had applied the Rule of Eleven at trick one. Six from 11 is five. So there were five spades higher than the six in the North, East and South hands combined, and East had seen them all at trick one. So, West’s spades were ready to run. East grabbed the third trick and returned his spade jack to defeat the contract.

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