Contract Bridge

Test your play

1. You are declarer with the West hand at Five Clubs. North leads the ten of diamonds. How would you play the hand?

2. You are declarer with the West hand at Three Notrump. North leads the six of hearts, and, when you follow low from dummy, South plays the nine. How would you play the hand?

1. Win the diamond, draw trump, cash two more diamonds and play the A-Q of hearts! This guarantees the contract regardless of how the missing cards are divided. The player who wins the heart must return a spade or yield a ruff-and-discard, which would hand you your game then and there.

If the spade return comes from North, you lose only one spade trick. If the spade return comes from South, you finesse the ten and again lose only one spade, since North is endplayed after he wins the trick.

The heart finesse should not be attempted. Taking the finesse would cost you the contract if South had the king of hearts and North the K-Q of spades. There is no reason to jeopardize the contract when there is a way to assure 11 tricks beyond the shadow of a doubt.

2. North can’t have the K-Q-J of hearts, since he would have led the king instead of the six initially. South therefore has a heart honor, which in turn means that by winning the first trick, you can stop the hearts from being run if the suit is divided 5-2.

The type of hand you are guarding against is one where North has:

If you ducked South’s nine of hearts, he would continue the suit, and you’d go down at least one. But if you win the nine with the ace and the diamonds are divided 5-2, you can assure nine tricks by cashing the K-Q of diamonds and ace of spades, leading the diamond jack to dummy’s ace and returning the queen of spades.

When North takes the king, he can’t run his hearts, since South’s now-singleton jack is blocking the suit. Whatever he returns, you can eventually lead your three of diamonds to dummy’s six and cash dummy’s spades to score nine tricks.