Contract Bridge

Assume you’re South and reach three notrump as shown. West leads a spade, and you win East’s king with the ace. When you play a diamond to the ten, East takes it with the ace and returns a spade to West’s queen. West continues with the nine of spades to dummy’s jack, East discarding a heart, and you eventually go down one, losing three spades and two diamonds.

Late that night, while trying to fall asleep, you suddenly realize you should have made the contract! Furthermore, as happens so often, you blew your chance at trick one. You should have let East win the first trick with the king of spades! Had you done that, you would have gotten home safe and sound with nine tricks.

East would return a spade, no doubt, but you would then be in the driver’s seat. You’d take your ace and lead a diamond, but the defenders would find themselves helpless.

If East won the trick with the ace, he wouldn’t have a spade to return to establish partner’s suit, while if West won the trick with the king, he could establish his spades but wouldn’t have an entry to cash them later on.

It may appear strange that the winning method of play is to voluntarily hold yourself to one spade trick when you can easily make two by taking East’s king with the ace at trick one. It seems counterproductive to reject a trick you can so easily win, but the plain unvarnished truth is that if you start thinking along these lines, you are barking up the wrong tree.

Your No. 1 aim from the start is to make three notrump. If you have to sacrifice a spade trick in order to achieve that goal, you must grit your teeth and spurn the trick. If you do things like that more often, you might sleep much better at night.