Contract Bridge

Partscore deals where each side has about half the high cards usually provide a give-and-take in the play that is not found at higher-level contracts. Consider this case from a national team event where South wound up in two diamonds and West led a club. East took the ace and shifted to a trump, the queen losing to West’s king.

West returned a trump to South’s ace, the spade jack lost to West’s ace, and another trump return by West eliminated dummy’s last trump. South then cashed the queen of spades before exiting with the ten of clubs to

West’s king.

Declarer was hoping for a spade or club return at this point, but West not unexpectedly shifted to a low heart, forcing South to guess the location of the missing honors.

After much thought, declarer played low from dummy, hoping to force the ace. This would establish the king as an entry to dummy’s good clubs, and South would be home free, losing only a spade, a heart, a diamond and two clubs. But declarer was counting his chickens before they were hatched.

After South played low from dummy on the heart return, East smartly inserted the nine. Declarer won with the jack but now had no way to reach the dummy.

However, South was not yet out of ammunition. He cashed the king of spades, hoping the ten would fall; when it didn’t, he led a heart to the ten, hoping East did not have the ten of spades. In that case, East would be forced to return a heart (or a club, if he had one) to dummy. But when East won the ace of hearts, he cashed the spade ten, and that was that.

Declarer should have made the contract despite the excellent defense he encountered. He was guilty of one small slip: Had he played the ten from dummy on West’s heart return at trick eight, he would have been assured of an entry to dummy regardless of how East defended.