Contract Bridge

There are many hands where it is much more dangerous for declarer to have one defender on lead than the other. It follows that if he has a genuine choice between which of two different methods of play to adopt — one of which avoids the dangerous opponent, while the other does not — he should choose to steer clear of the player who can do him the most harm. Here is a typical case. South is in three notrump, and West leads a spade. Declarer wins with the nine and observes that his primary source of tricks lies in the club suit.

Superficially, there appear to be two obvious approaches to the clubs. One possibility is for South to cash the king of clubs at trick two, planning to finesse against West for the missing queen at trick three on the basis that West, who opened the bidding, is more likely to have the queen than East. Of course, if the finesse loses to East, a spade return will almost surely sink the contract.

Alternatively, declarer can cross to the ace at trick two, planning to lead the jack next and finesse, on the basis that even if West wins with the queen, he will be unable to prevent South from scoring nine tricks.

But neither of these approaches is correct. In the actual case, declarer would fail against best defense even if he took the second- round club finesse successfully through East. East’s four clubs to the queen would ultimately sink the contract.

However, South can assure his game by adopting a third and significantly better line of play. He leads a diamond to the queen at trick two (rather than a club to the ace) and finesses the jack of clubs at trick three. If the finesse loses to West, South has nine sure tricks; if the finesse wins, South repeats the finesse with equally deadly effect.

Arranging the play so as to avoid the more dangerous opponent — but with the added measure of guarding against the Q-x-x-x(-x) in the East hand — proves to be just what the doctor ordered.