Try to picture declarer’s problem

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe said, “One ought, every day at least, to hear a little song, read a good poem, see a fine picture and, if it is possible, to speak a few reasonable words.”

He omitted playing a newsworthy bridge deal for a good reason — the game hadn’t been invented. However, a good bridge defender tries to picture not only the declarer’s hand, but also how to upset declarer’s maneuvers.

In today’s deal, which was sent to me by Danny Kleinman, look at the North and East hands. South is in four spades. West leads the club 10: five, ace, king. What should East do now?

North’s one-no-trump response showed 6-11 points with fewer than three spades. His subsequent raise to three spades indicated a maximum with two-card support. South’s game-bid was optimistic.

Suppose East returns a club at trick two. South ruffs, crosses to the spade ace and plays a heart to his eight. West wins and leads his last club, but declarer ruffs, draws trumps, plays a diamond to the queen and returns a heart to his 10. When that finesse works, South cashes the heart ace and leads another diamond. He loses only one heart, one diamond and one club.

Let’s go back to trick two and have East shift to the diamond seven. West wins with his ace and tries to give East a ruff. Now declarer must draw trumps (to stop East from gaining a diamond ruff) and can no longer take two heart finesses, because he has only one dummy entry left, the diamond king.