Contract Bridge

There are players known as card-pushers, a derisive term that describes those who tend to play without thought. There are card-pushers at every level of the game, but, sadly, most of them are not aware of their shortcoming and simply proceed blithely along, rarely stopping to think things out.

Here is an example of a card-pusher at work. West leads the K-A and another heart against South’s four-spade contract. Declarer ruffs the third heart, enters dummy with a trump and finesses the queen of clubs, losing to the king.

West returns the ten of clubs to declarer’s ace. South draws trumps ending in dummy, discards a diamond on the jack of clubs, but eventually loses a diamond and goes down one.

The evidence convicts South of being a card-pusher. There is no good reason to go down on this hand; West’s opening bid tells declarer who has the king of clubs and that a club finesse, if attempted, is certain to fail.

If declarer’s only concern

were to avoid losing a club trick, he would have to finesse. But South’s primary goal is to make the contract, and he cannot achieve it by taking a finesse that is virtually certain to lose. Instead, South should lead a low club toward dummy at trick four!

If West takes the king,

South later cashes the ace of clubs, draws trumps ending in dummy and discards the 8-6 of diamonds on the Q-J of clubs. If West does not take the king of clubs, South wins in dummy, plays the A-K-x of diamonds and later ruffs his remaining diamond in dummy to produce his 10th trick.

Tomorrow: Extra chance.