Contract Bridge

Declarer’s principal responsibility is to make the contract. In attempting to meet this goal, he does not pay much attention to overtricks, but instead bends his efforts to fulfilling his primary assignment.

Consider this classic case from a rubber-bridge game many years ago. West led a club against three notrump, and South, Harold Ogust, won East’s jack with the queen. Ogust saw that he could make the contract easily if he cashed the K-Q of spades and the suit proved to be divided 3-2.

But he also realized that if the spades were divided 4-1, he would most likely be defeated. Unwilling to stake his all on a 3-2 spade division, Ogust devised a method of play that would give him a chance to make the contract even if the spades did not break.

Accordingly, at trick two he cashed the spade king and continued with the queen. But, after West followed with the eight, Ogust overtook the queen with the ace! This extraordinary play had solid reasoning behind it.

If East had followed to the spade, the plan was to continue the suit and thus establish dummy’s remaining three spades to assure nine tricks. But when East showed out on the second spade, Ogust was able to switch to the alternate line of play he had reserved in case the spades were not 3-2.

He led dummy’s ten of diamonds. It did not matter whether East covered with the queen or not. Ogust could not be prevented from eventually winning four diamond tricks, and he wound up making three notrump.

If he had cashed the K-Q of spades initially, Ogust would have been defeated. His play of overtaking the queen could have cost him a trick or two if the spades had been divided normally, but the overtake gave him a better chance to make the contract.