Contract Bridge

opponents’ cards are divided. Win the heart and play the queen of diamonds, not a low diamond. If the suit is divided 4-0 and the defender with the A-10-9-8 takes the ace, you later lead a low diamond and play low from dummy to assure nine tricks; if the defender with four diamonds does not take the ace, stop playing diamonds and attack clubs.

If both opponents follow to the diamond queen and it holds the trick, lead another diamond to dummy’s jack. If the jack also wins, shift your attention to clubs, forcing out the A-K and thus making four notrump.

If you were to make the mistake of leading a low diamond to the jack at trick two, you might find yourself going down if, for example, South had the A-10-9-8 of diamonds and took the jack with the ace.

2. It is virtually certain that North has the ace of spades and king of hearts for his opening bid. It would therefore be wrong to rely on a heart finesse, especially when there is a much safer method of play available.

The best approach is to start by ruffing the queen of diamonds. It would be a serious error to play the ace from dummy at trick one, which would force you to make a discard from your hand before you are ready to do so.

After drawing trumps, you next lead the three of spades toward dummy, placing North squarely on the horns of a dilemma. If he goes up with the ace, you can later discard the Q-5-2 of hearts on the K-J of spades and ace of diamonds. Alternatively, if North ducks the spade, you win with dummy’s jack, discard the queen of spades on the ace of diamonds, lose a heart finesse to North’s king and later trump two hearts in dummy. Either way, you make the slam.