By Eddie Kantar 
Courtesy of KantarBridge.com
Neither vulnerable, IMPs
Opening lead: ♠ K
Well, you ‘successfully’ avoided 4♥ and 3NT (from your side) to land in 5♦ . Things could be worse as 5♦ is certainly playable. How would you play it?
Solution
The best way to handle this situation is to duck the opening lead! In effect you are exchanging a spade loser for a heart loser. If a spade is continued, ruff, draw two rounds of trumps ending in dummy, discard a heart on the ♠A and play the ♥AK and ruff a heart. If hearts are 3-2, you can discard both clubs on the established hearts and make an overtrick. The only way West can save the overtrick is to cash the ♣A at trick two- an unlikely play to say the least.
THE BOTTOM LINE
Exchanging one loser for another can be a neat form of avoidance
play.