bridge

Test your play

1. You are declarer with the West hand at Six Hearts. North leads the king of clubs, which you ruff. When you then play the ace of hearts, North discards a spade. How would you continue?

1. To give yourself the best chance of making 12 tricks, you should allow for the possibility of either opponent having four diamonds to the jack. Play the 10 of hearts under the ace, cash the king of hearts, king of spades and ace of diamonds, then finesse the nine of hearts.

Next cash the queen of hearts and ace of spades, discarding the K-Q of diamonds from dummy! Then play the 10 of diamonds to force out the jack, and this will be your only loser.

If the diamonds are divided 3-2, this method of play will cost you a trick worth 30 points, but if they are divided 4-1, you will be 1,000 or 1,500 points richer, depending on the vulnerability.

2. If you were sure of five club tricks, you'd also be sure of the contract, but since the odds strongly favor scoring only four club tricks, you must consider a diamond finesse for your 12th trick.

This train of thought leads to the surprising conclusion that since there are two ways to play the clubs and only one way to play the diamonds, you should try the diamond finesse first to help you determine how to play the clubs.

Let's say you take the first spade in your hand and lead a diamond to the jack at trick two, and it wins. Once this occurs, the contract is foolproof. The only remaining problem is to guarantee four club tricks, which can be done by returning to your hand in any suit but clubs and leading a low club toward dummy. This enables you to guard against either opponent having the K-10-8-7.

If the diamond finesse at trick two loses, you will then have to hope that South was dealt specifically the K-x or K-x-x of clubs (a 26 percent chance) and rely on a finesse to produce five club tricks.