Contract Bridge

The most difficult part of declarer play is to determine how the defenders’ cards are divided and where specific key cards are located. Fortunately, there are clues in almost every hand that should enable declarer to attain the best result possible if he puts forth a maximum effort.

Consider this case where South failed to take advantage of a significant clue. West led the king of diamonds, which held, and continued with the ten, won by East with the ace. East returned the ten of hearts, covered by the Q-K-A. South later lost a heart and a club, and so went down one.

On the surface, it seems that South did nothing wrong. He had four losers, and he lost them. But it is not that cut-and-dried. The fact is that South missed his cue when he covered East’s ten of hearts with the queen. He should have played the six instead!

Undoubtedly, he played the queen in the hope of finding East with the king. However, this was not a realistic view, since the defenders could have arranged for West to be on lead at trick three instead of East and would have done so if East had had the king of hearts. Their plays clearly indicated that West had the king.

Had South played the six on the ten, he could have made the contract by taking the ace, drawing trump, ruffing a diamond in dummy, cashing the A-K of clubs and then leading a heart to the queen.

West would take the king, but, with only hearts and diamonds left, he would be forced to return one or the other. This would allow declarer to ruff in dummy while discarding his remaining club, and the seemingly unmakeable contract would come sailing home.