Contract Bridge

Bridge is hard to play flawlessly, as almost all of us would readily concede. However, the nature of the game is such that the great majority of mistakes go unpunished — and this is as it should be, because most mistakes are minor and the good Lord is generally forgiving in such cases.

Even so, the fact remains that a player must occasionally pay for even a minor mistake. That’s exactly what happened in this deal where South failed to make a slam he should have made.

He won the club lead and played a low spade to the jack, winning the finesse. But he eventually went down one since he now had to lose a trump trick as well as a diamond.

South would have made the slam had he led the queen of spades instead of the deuce when he took the finesse at trick two. In the actual case, if West covers with the king, declarer wins with the ace and, after East shows out, later finesses against West’s ten. The only trick declarer loses is a diamond.

The queen is technically the right play, as it wins not only when West has the singleton or doubleton king, but also when he has the tripleton king.

Ordinarily, leading the deuce to the jack would not be a fatal error, because it costs a trick only in those hands where West has all three trumps — only an 11% probability. Nevertheless, assuming that South plans to finesse in spades, which is the proper play, the queen lead never costs a trick. But because the deuce lead sometimes will, it is better to start out by leading the queen.