Contract Bridge

Let’s say you’re declarer at three notrump and West leads the club five, which you win with the seven after East follows low. You play the king of hearts, but, naturally, the opponents don’t take it.

This doesn’t disturb you too much, because you next lead a low club, planning to finesse the ten and then set up dummy’s heart suit. Assuming the club finesse works, which seems likely, you are sure of at least nine tricks.

Unfortunately, when you lead the two of clubs at trick three, West, a worthy adversary, plays the jack. This forces you to take the ace and, with the K-Q of clubs still in your hand, renders dummy’s ten useless as a subsequent entry. It therefore becomes pointless to establish the hearts.

So you play a diamond and finesse the queen, hoping to find East with the king and the suit divided 3-3. If this is the case, you would still have a chance to make the contract. But West takes the queen with the king and returns a club. You struggle awhile, but eventually wind up down one, due largely to West’s fine play of the jack of clubs.

Some time later, you think the hand over and realize you should have made the contract. It’s too late now to do anything about it, but you add the deal to your store of experience and hope you won’t ever repeat the error.

It all goes back to your play to the very first trick. Instead of winning the opening lead with the seven of clubs, you should have won it with the king!

Then, after the king of hearts is refused, as expected, you can lead the two of clubs, intending to finesse the ten. Now it wouldn’t matter whether or not West put up the jack of clubs, because if he did, the ten would become a second entry to dummy after the hearts were established.

Tomorrow: Defense is a logical process.