Bridge

Opening lead — jack of hearts.

To be a good player, you must acquire the habit of making assumptions. Often an assumption will turn out to be wrong, but that doesn’t mean it was wrong to make it; only by making assumptions can you put yourself in a position to win when it is possible to win.

Here is a typical case. Let’s say you’re East and partner leads the jack of hearts against three notrump. South wins with the queen and leads the queen of spades. It doesn’t matter when you take your ace; what does matter is what you play next.

It’s easy to see — if you look at all four hands — that if you return a low diamond, your side can snatch four diamond tricks to set the contract. But if you don’t return a low diamond at trick three — perhaps because you were taught not to lead away from a king, or always to return your partner’s suit — declarer finishes with 10 tricks.

Regardless of what you might have been taught, however, the fact is that in this case you must assume West has the ace of diamonds to give yourself any chance of beating the contract.

To assume that South has the ace of diamonds — or to ignore entirely the question of who has the ace — and blindly return a heart would be giving up. It is obvious that declarer will score at least nine tricks — four spades, two hearts (you can’t be sure who has the king) and three clubs — if you play “safe” and return a heart.

It is true that West must have somewhat more strength in diamonds than just four to the ace — he must have at least the jack with it — but this is merely an extension of the original assumption.