Contract Bridge

There are many simplelooking hands where it is very easy for declarer to go astray. Such hands appear with no advance notice, and before declarer realizes what has happened, he finds he has painted himself into a corner.

For example, consider this seemingly innocent-looking deal where West leads a spade against three notrump. Let’s say South wins with the queen and plays a low club to the jack, on which West shows out. East takes the jack with the ace and returns a spade. Eventually, South goes down one, losing two spades, two diamonds and a club — even though he shifts his attack to diamonds at trick four.

Declarer also goes down if he leads a diamond at trick two, assuming best defense by East-West. In that case, South loses two hearts, two diamonds and a club.

The winning line of play — guaranteed to succeed regardless of how the missing cards are divided — is to lead the queen of clubs, not the five, at trick two! In the actual case, if East takes the ace, declarer wins any return and allows East to win the next round of clubs with the eight. This assures scoring four club tricks, three spades, and two hearts.

If East ducks the queen of clubs at trick two, South is still on solid ground. He simply turns his attention to diamonds, forcing out the A-K, and scores nine tricks consisting of three spades, two hearts, three diamonds and a club.

Choosing whether to lead the queen or five of clubs at trick two may seem unimportant, but the fact is that playing the queen guarantees the contract, while playing the five does not. When one play is sure to win and cannot lose, and another play is likely to win but may lose, there can be no question as to which is the better play.