Contract Bridge

This deal features a play that’s easy enough to appreciate once the hand is over, but one that might easily be overlooked in actual practice.

When the deal occurred, South won the opening diamond lead with the ace and cashed the A-K of trumps. He then led dummy’s queen of clubs and, after East followed low, let it ride.

West won with the king and returned a diamond to East’s king. East then shifted to a spade, and the defense scored two spade tricks for down one.

While it is true that South was unlucky to find West with both the king of clubs and ace of spades, the fact remains that South was responsible for his own demise. Had he refused to take West’s queen of diamonds with the ace at trick one, he would have overcome the unfriendly lie of the cards.

The purpose of ducking West’s queen at the outset is to prevent him from later putting his partner on lead with a diamond. By severing this line of communication between the defenders, declarer assures the contract even if the club finesse loses and the spade ace is offside.

Let’s say West continues with a diamond at trick two. Declarer wins, draws trumps as before and tries the club finesse. West takes his king but is helpless. A diamond return presents South with a ruff-anddiscard; cashing the spade ace establishes South’s king; and a club return allows declarer to discard two spades on dummy’s clubs. All roads thus lead to at least 10 tricks.

Note that if East elects to overtake West’s queen with the king at trick one, South can counter by taking his ace at once. The presence of dummy’s ten ensures that East will at no point be able to gain the lead to return a spade through declarer’s king.