Contract Bridge

A declarer sometimes finds it impossible to score all the tricks he appears to have because he lacks the entries either to his own hand or to dummy to cash them. This type of communication problem can plague the defenders also when one of them has tricks to cash, but no entry to his hand to take them.

Whenever possible, therefore, each side should do whatever it can to interfere with the other side’s lines of communication. One of the most common means of achieving this goal is the hold-up play, which is demonstrated in today’s hand.

West leads a heart, on which East plays the king, and the outcome depends on South’s play to this trick. If declarer ducks, as he should, East returns a heart. South wins, enters dummy with a club and leads a diamond. East takes the ace and, having no more hearts, returns either a spade or a club. Declarer wins, drives out the king of diamonds, and makes four notrump.

If South wins the opening heart lead, he goes down. Whenever he tackles diamonds, East takes the ace and returns a heart, establishing West’s hearts regardless of whether declarer takes the queen on this trick or the next one. South then goes down either one or two tricks, depending on how the play goes.

The reason for ducking East’s king at trick one is that South has something to gain and nothing to lose by the duck. Declarer reasons that if the hearts are divided 4-4, the contract is safe whether he takes the first trick or not. Also, if the hearts are divided 5-3, the contract is in danger but no harm can come from refusing to win the first trick.

The one great advantage of ducking the first heart comes when the hearts are divided 6-2. Here the duck assures the contract except in the case where West has the A-K of diamonds, but even then nothing is lost by ducking the king.