WHOEVER is now calling the shots in Bangkok in the playoff with protesters appears to have adopted a sensible strategy to shift the red shirt demonstrators from Bangkok's commercial heart.

Red reinforcement lines are now being cut by checkpoints, as in 'Battle Strategy 101: First, Cut the Lines of Supply.'

Red leaders have been ordered to report to the governors of all 76 provinces next week to reduce the potential impact of any blowup in Bangkok spreading to outlying areas.

Soldiers have been sent to high-rise positions overlooking the downtown Bangkok shopping area where the reds are holed up, army spokesman Colonel Sansern Kaewkamnerd said, ''to prevent people with ill intentions from infiltrating the area.''

Phuket red leader Sunthorn Toema, who has been in Bangkok since March 12, was in a meeting tonight with other red leaders when Phuketwan called but Phuket yellow leader Aparat Chutikamjorn was bold enough to speculate from Phuket that the red rally in Bangkok will end on Wednesday.

She believes pressure from the army will bring the rally to an end. If the red rally does not dispand this week, she said, the yellow shirt leadership of the Peoples' Alliance for Democracy will meet in a week's time and decide whether to take action. At this stage, she said, any action would not involve mobilising their own supporters.

''I expect everything will be finished in Bangkok by Wednesday,'' she said. Khun Aparat was among a small group of protesters who demonstrated on Phuket last Saturday about the army's lack of action against the red rally in Bangkok.

That evening the army moved in, resulting in a bungled operation that inevitably met resistance and has so far led to 25 deaths, with more than 800 injured.

General Anupong Paochinda was given tactical command of the operation against the resilient red shirts after a second fiasco on Friday, when red shirt leaders escaped arrest because they were warned in advance in a television announcement by Deputy Prime Minister Suthep Thaugsuban.

Thailand's tourism industry is among the casualties of the stand-off, and in need of intensive care. Phuket, though, is better able to cope than other resort destinations in Thailand because of its distance from the action in Bangkok.