Contract Bridge

1. You are declarer with the West hand at Four Hearts. North leads the king of diamonds and shifts to a trump, South following suit. How would you play the hand?

2. You are declarer with the West hand at Three Notrump. North leads the jack of diamonds. How would you play the hand?

1. Win the trump in dummy, ruff a diamond, cash the K-A of clubs and ruff a club. Then ruff a diamond, a club and another diamond, at which point you are out of diamonds and clubs in both hands. Having successfully crossruffed the hand, you lose only three tricks — a diamond and two spades.

You proceed as though you were declarer with the East cards and West were the dummy. It would be natural, if you were East, to ruff your diamond losers in dummy — and almost any East who got to four hearts would automatically do so. The line of play should not change merely because West is declarer, but should be the same regardless of where the declarer happens to be physically located.

2. You start with eight tricks and should look for the best way to acquire a ninth. There are two possible lines of play. One is to cross to your hand with a club and lead a spade toward dummy. If North follows low, you must guess whether to play the jack or the king. Mathematically, you have a 50 percent chance of guessing right.

The other method of play is to attack hearts instead of spades by cashing dummy’s A-K. If the ten or queen appears, you can clinch the contract by leading another heart. If neither of them appears, you continue with a third heart and make three notrump unless North started with four hearts headed by the Q-10.

The second line of play is far better than the first. You have about an 85 percent chance of developing a third heart trick by playing as described. Indeed, even if both opponents follow low when you cash the A-K, you are still about a 4-to-1 favorite to make a third heart trick by leading another heart from dummy.