The Extra Trick Might Appear

Even if your contract looks hopeless, never give up -- unless you have already gone down. Just keep playing tricks -you never know what might happen. An opponent might make a mistake, or you might stumble onto a winning line that you had overlooked.

In today’s deal, for example,

South is in four hearts. West leads the diamond king. Declarer wins with his ace and cashes the heart ace-king, but West discards a club on the second round. How should South continue?

North’s four-heart rebid was debatable. He decided to go with the known eight-card major-suit fit. However, with such a balanced hand, perhaps he should have settled for three no-trump. Today, though, he did well because three notrump would have failed. (The curious may work out how a 5-3 diamond split would have kept three no-trump alive.)

Declarer seems destined to lose two hearts and two diamonds, but if he counts winners, there is a chance at 10.

He cashes the spade ace-king, ruffs a spade in hand and tries to collect three club tricks, ending on the board. When that passes off safely, South has nine tricks in the bank: two spades, two hearts, one diamond, three clubs and one spade ruff. In his hand he has two low

trumps and two diamonds. East retains

WIN

BRIDGE

two high hearts and two diamonds.

Now declarer leads dummy’s last spade. What can East do? If he discards, South ruffs for his 10th trick. If East ruffs

instead, declarer discards a diamond loser and must collect another trump trick. Effectively, East has ruffed one of his partner’s diamond winners.