Contract Bridge

In the same way as declarer is often faced with the problem of overcoming a missing queen, he is sometimes faced with the problem of overcoming a missing jack. Thus, in the accompanying deal, South starts out with nine virtually certain tricks, and his primary objective is to try to score an extra trick in either diamonds or clubs by overcoming the missing jack in one of those suits.

West led the ten and another spade. Declarer ruffed the third round of spades high, West showing out. South then drew three rounds of trump — East following suit to each — and played a low diamond to dummy’s queen. East won with the ace and returned the nine of diamonds.

Had South elected to finesse the ten of diamonds at this stage, he would have gone down one. But instead he went up with the king, knowing that he was sure to make the contract by doing so.

South realized that since East was known to have started with precisely six spades and three hearts, and had already shown up with two diamonds, East could not have been dealt more than two clubs. A diamond finesse was therefore out of the question, since making four club tricks had now become an absolute certainty.

After taking the nine of diamonds with the king, declarer played the A- K and another club and finessed dummy’s ten after West followed with the nine. South then discarded his ten of diamonds on the queen of clubs to finish with 10 tricks.

Keeping track of how many cards the defenders were dealt in each suit may be regarded by some as a difficult chore, but it sure does take a lot of guesswork out of the game.