Contract Bridge

CARDS ALWAYS TELL A STORY

There are many deals where declarer appears to have no chance to make his contract as the cards lie. In some of these cases, though, the situation is not quite as hopeless as it might seem. All that’s required is that declarer expend a little bit of extra effort.

Consider this deal where three notrump would have been the ideal contract, but where North-South reached four spades instead. Declarer won the diamond lead with the ace and played the queen of spades, taken by East with the ace. East returned his singleton heart, but South went up with the ace, drew two more rounds of trump ending in dummy, and then led the jack of hearts, planning to let it ride if East followed low.

But when East discarded a diamond, it seemed declarer would have to lose a trick in each suit and go down one. However, South soon found a way to turn the bad news in hearts to his advantage.

He started by playing the king of hearts and then the king of diamonds. When West followed suit, his original distribution became an open book. The play to this point had revealed that West started with exactly three spades, six hearts and two diamonds. He therefore had to have precisely two clubs, which in turn gave South two different ways to make the contract!

In practice, South played the A-K of clubs and led a third club. East won and cashed a diamond, but was then forced to return either a diamond or a club, allowing declarer to discard his heart loser while he ruffed in dummy.

The same result could have been achieved by putting West on lead with a heart after cashing the A-K of clubs, compelling him to return a heart for the fatal ruff-and-discard.