Bridge

Opening lead — king of clubs.

Declarer sometimes finds he has all the tricks he needs to make the contract and yet can’t cash them because of insufficient communication between his own hand and dummy’s. Entry problems of this sort may be impossible to solve in a particular hand, but there are times when a little ingenuity can provide the right answer.

Take this case where South was in four hearts and West led two top clubs, East discarding a diamond on the second one. West then made the best play of a low club, which East ruffed and South over-ruffed.

At this point, declarer thought he would make the contract without difficulty, since he appeared to have 10 tricks consisting of five hearts, four spades and a diamond. But when he played the ace of hearts and East showed out, cashing all 10 tricks suddenly became a serious problem.

Declarer realised that if he drew the remaining trumps first, he would not be able to get back to his hand to cash the jack of spades, and if he attempted to cash the A-K-Q of spades first, it was virtually certain that West would trump one of them.

Faced with this dilemma, South came up with an unusual solution that salvaged the contract. He decided to play East for the king of diamonds because it was improbable that West would have passed originally with the A-K-Q-10-3 of clubs and the diamond king.

Accordingly, South drew three more rounds of trump and discarded dummy’s ace of diamonds on the last one! He then cashed the A-K-Q of spades, reducing his hand to the jack of spades and Q-3 of diamonds.

When he next led the ten of diamonds from dummy, East was without recourse. He won the trick with his king, but then had to concede the last two tricks to South’s jack of spades and queen of diamonds.