Contract Bridge

Bridge is basically a game of percentages, which means you’ll do well if you follow the odds, and you won’t if you don’t.

Assume you’re declarer at six spades and West leads the queen of clubs. You win with the ace and cash the K- Q of spades, finding the trumps divided 2-2. You must now decide which of three lines of play to adopt.

Perhaps the simplest approach is to cross to the king of diamonds and lead a heart to your queen. If the finesse succeeds, you’re home. If it fails, you still have a chance to recover by cashing the ace of diamonds and ruffing a diamond, making the slam if the opposing diamonds are divided 3-3 (a 36% chance).

Alternatively, after drawing trump, you could start by cashing the A- K of diamonds and ruffing a diamond. If the suit breaks 3-3, you make seven. If it doesn’t, you can cross to dummy with a trump and try the heart finesse.

If you choose either of these lines of play, you have about a 68% chance of making the slam. Not bad, of course, but not as good as a third method of play, which is to lead a low diamond from your hand at trick four and play low from dummy!

Let’s assume East wins and shifts to a heart. You go up with the ace, cash the A- K of diamonds, discarding a heart, and ruff a diamond to establish dummy’s last diamond. You then lead a trump to the ace and discard the heart queen on the diamond eight to make the slam. This approach succeeds whenever the diamonds are divided 3-3 or 4-2, an 84% probability. It is therefore the best percentage play.