Contract Bridge

You can’t see declarer’s cards when you’re a defender, but it is often possible to visualize them almost as if they were faceup on the table. The relevant inferences may be drawn from either the bidding or the play, but usually it is necessary to examine both of these areas.

Consider this case where East had to make a crucial decision at trick one. West led the ten of diamonds, on which declarer played dummy’s jack, and East had to decide whether the diamond lead was a singleton or a doubleton.

If East decides that the ten is a singleton, he should take the jack with the ace and return a diamond for West to ruff. If East had done this in the actual deal, South would have made the contract easily, losing only a spade, a diamond and a club.

But East donned his thinking cap and decided that the lead was almost surely a doubleton. Accordingly, he signaled with the seven of diamonds instead of taking the ace. When West later gained the lead with the king of trump, he returned a diamond to East’s ace and ruffed the diamond return to put the contract down one.

East knew from the bidding that declarer had four spades and four hearts. (North’s twoclub bid was Stayman, asking South to bid a four-card major suit if he had one, and South had bid both.) It followed that South could not have four diamonds, since that would mean he had opened one notrump with a singleton club.

West’s lead therefore had to be a doubleton, and the best chance of stopping the contract was to proceed on the assumption that West could gain the lead before all the trumps were drawn and could then secure his diamond ruff.