More bridge winners from counting points

By Phillip Alder

Friedrich Nietzsche said, “On the mountains of truth you can never climb in vain: Either you will reach a point higher up today, or you will be training your powers so that you will be able to climb higher tomorrow.”

Yes, the more you work at anything, the better you will probably become. Here is another deal in which declarer uses the bidding and high-card points to work out the winning play.

South is in four spades. West cashes the heart ace and king before shifting to the spade four. How should declarer continue?

Over West’s takeout double, North was influenced by the Law of Total Tricks, bidding straight to the four-level in the known 10-card spade fit. Then, East might have bid five hearts (or four no-trump, which would have shown a two-suiter). Here, that contract would have gone down only two, which would have been a good save if four spades were making.

West was tempted to shift to a club at trick three, but realized that it could not help. He saw that the weird-looking spade lead could not cost.

South has to guess the clubs to get home. After drawing trumps, he cashes the diamonds ending in the dummy (to delay the evil moment), then leads the club jack. When East plays low smoothly (you would, wouldn’t you?), what should declarer do?

West has already produced nine points: the heart ace-king and spade queen. If he had the club ace as well, he would have opened the bidding. So, South puts up his club king. It’s a certainty to win.