Contract Bridge

Many mistakes in declarer play can be traced to a failure by declarer to count his winners or losers at the start of play. South was guilty of that omission in this deal, and it cost him his contract.

West led the K- A- Q of hearts, declarer ruffing the third round as East discarded a diamond. South led a club to dummy’s ace and finessed the queen of diamonds, losing to the king. West returned the ten of hearts, on which East shed his last diamond.

South was now in serious trouble. When he played the ace of diamonds, planning next to trump his two diamond losers in dummy, East ruffed, and that was that — down one.

When the play is examined, it can be seen that the diamond finesse was totally unnecessary. True, it might have gained declarer an overtrick if East held the king, but South should have been far more concerned with making four spades than five.

After West’s third heart lead, South could count five trump tricks plus the ace of diamonds and A- K of clubs. Therefore, all he needed to do to assure the contract was to ruff two diamonds in dummy. The K-10 of trump guaranteed that East could not overruff dummy at any point, so the diamond finesse constituted an unnecessary risk.

South should simply have cashed the ace of diamonds at trick four, then played another diamond to pave the way for two subsequent diamond ruffs. Had he done this, he would have finished with 10 tricks.

It pays to count your tricks and/or losers at the outset before beginning to play. If you do, you are much less likely to stray from the straight and narrow.