Contract Bridge

Occasionally, declarer may make a play that might arouse suspicion that he had peeked into one of his opponents’ hands. While such things have been known to happen, the fact is that most such plays are based more on sound reasoning than on ill-gotten information.

Consider this case where South was in three notrump and West led a heart. Declarer held up his ace on the first two hearts and won the third as East discarded a low spade.

The outcome now depended on how South handled the club suit, from which he needed to score three tricks to make his contract. The obvious approach was to cross to dummy and try a club finesse. If it won, 10 tricks would be there for the taking; if it lost, he would go down one.

After careful consideration, declarer plunked down the ace of clubs, caught West’s king and finished with an overtrick!

Since the chance of West’s holding the king singleton with five cards outstanding is exceedingly small (less than 3%), while a finesse offers a roughly 50% chance of success, it might seem that South was either clairvoyant or had seen the king in West’s hand. However, declarer had a very sound reason for playing the clubs as he did.

South’s primary concern was to try to develop the three club tricks he needed in the safest way possible. He could afford to lose a club trick in the process, so long as he did not lose it to West. A successful club finesse was therefore not really necessary to make three notrump, but it would be disastrous if West happened to hold the singleton king.

There were thus two different chances to make the contract: if East had the king of clubs, or if West had the singleton king. The play of the ace catered to both possibilities.