Contract Bridge

Even a well-oiled partnership is bound to wind up occasionally in a contract that has no chance to make.

However, impossible contracts can sometimes be salvaged by giving the opponents a chance to make a mistake, and such a tactic may well succeed if the setting is right. Take this case where declarer made five diamonds, even though, looking at all four hands, you might wonder how this could happen.

Of course, West could have defeated the contract by leading the ace and another heart initially, in which case South would have had to lose a club trick eventually and go down one. But West, not having X-ray eyes, made the more normal lead of the queen of spades.

Even with this lead, South saw he had no hope of making 11 tricks by regular means. So, to give the defense a chance to go wrong, he played low from both hands and let West’s queen win the trick!

West found it difficult at this point to lead a heart, which was the only play he could now make to defeat the contract, so he led another spade.

Given a life, South won the spade with the king, drew two rounds of trumps, then cashed the A-K of clubs. After entering dummy with a trump, he discarded a club on the ace of spades and ruffed a club.

When the opposing clubs

divided 3-3, declarer was home. He crossed to dummy with a trump and discarded a heart on dummy’s eight of clubs. The only tricks he lost were a spade and a heart.

Note that South’s duck of the spade at trick one had everything to gain and nothing to lose. Even if the defense cashed two heart tricks at that point, the opening play would not cost a thing since the club loser could later be discarded on the ace of spades.

Tomorrow: Haste makes waste.