Having a winning partnership is like house-hunting in California: If you find a fault, don't dwell on it.

Today's West led a spade against 3NT, and East took the king and ace. West followed with the four. East led a third spade, and South produced the queen and claimed.

East-West then engaged in some seismic fault-finding:

West: "The man wouldn't have bid 3NT without a spade stopper. Shift to a club at Trick Three and he goes down."

WINNING SHIFT

East: "You were at fault. When I cash the ace of spades, play your jack, denying possession of the queen. Then I may find the winning shift."

West: "Even if I did, you might continue spades. What if South held Q 5 2, Q J 6 3, K 7 2, K Q J?"

East: "If you had the ace of hearts as an entry, why wouldn't you play the four on the second spade to get me to continue spades?"

East-West were living in San Andreas. No matter who was right -- in my view, nobody was clearly right -- they need to conduct more charitable postmortems.

DAILY QUESTION

You hold: S Q 5 2 H A Q J 6 D K 7 2 C Q 10 5. Your partner opens one spade, and you respond 2NT (showing in your methods a balanced 12 to 15 points). Partner next bids three clubs. What do you say?

ANSWER: Since your partner's distribution must be unbalanced, you shouldn't insist on 3NT, nor should you bid three hearts. Do as partner wants you to do with three-card support for his first suit: Bid three spades. He may hold A J 10 7 3, K 7, 4 3, A J 9 7.