ssh, hosts.allow, hosts.deny, and dyndns names

[Bob Sterne]

I had "sshd: .cn" in my server's hosts.deny file, and a dyndns setup
on my laptop, with "sshd: myLaptopDyndns.host.name" (redacted) in
hosts.allow on the server.

I thought hosts.allow took precedence over hosts.deny, but when I was
in China, it wouldn't let me log in.  (I had to log into another
machine somewhere else to log into my server to take "sshd: .cn" out
and restart sshd, before it would work.)

Is hosts.allow supposed to override hosts.deny?

Or is the problem that dyndns-type addresses don't "reverse lookup"
from the dynamic IP?

Thanks