You must give him chance to trip

Jeph Jacques, in his web comic “Questionable Content,” wrote, “There are two ways to pass a hurdle: leaping over or plowing through.”

At the bridge table, though, sometimes you must give an opponent a chance to trip up; you must not give him a free pass to his contract.

How should East plan the defense in this deal? South is in four spades, and West leads a fourth-highest diamond six.

North has a textbook gameinvitational limit raise, showing 10-12 support points (here, 11 high-card points and one shortage point for the doubleton) and eight losers (two spades, one heart, three diamonds and two clubs).

The defenders need four tricks. From East's point of view, these surely must be either three diamonds and one club or two diamonds and two clubs. But how does he know which way to turn?

East takes the first trick with the diamond king (bottom of touching honors when playing third hand high). Then he cashes the diamond ace and looks closely at his partner's card. If it is higher than the six, West must have led from a four-card suit. In that case, East cashes the club ace before leading his third diamond.

Here, though, West follows with the diamond five, showing that he started with five diamonds. Now East must shift to a low club.

Will South guess correctly? Probably not; he will be inclined to think that if West has only the club queen, he might have led that suit at trick one. But if West has the club ace, he would never have led that suit.