Where to play a knavish card?

The Senior Life Master decided to introduce a little theater history into his class.

In 1937, he began, Ira Gershwin wrote a musical based on P.G. Wodehouse’s story “A Damsel in Distress.” When commenting on what makes an Englishman “a fighter through and through,” he penned: “When you’re in the stew — Sober or blotto, This is your motto: Keep muddling through!”

It rarely pays to play bridge when blotto. But when your back is against the wall, you should keep the upper lip stiff and try your hardest to pull through.

The SLM wrote the North and South hands from today’s diagram onto the board.

In this deal (he continued), you overbid to a precarious six-club contract. West leads the spade queen. What is your best chance of muddling through the mulligatawny?

He gave everyone some moments to assess the contract’s chances. Then he resumed.

You have 10 top tricks, plus an 11th easily available in diamonds. But you need 12 tricks. Of course, if West has the diamond ace and plays it when you lead a diamond toward the dummy, you will receive two diamond tricks and make your contract, but I won’t allow West to defend that poorly.

It is best to hope that West has the diamond knave, as they used to say in England. After winning the first trick and drawing trumps ending in your hand, lead a diamond and finesse dummy’s 10. If this draws the ace, you are home. If it loses to the jack, probably you couldn’t have made the slam anyway.