A little patience may pay dividends

Elizabeth Taylor said, “It is very strange ... that the years teach us patience; that the shorter our time, the greater our capacity for waiting.”

At the bridge table, it can pay to be patient when able to take a trick. Maybe partner can steer you in the right direction — as in this deal.

What should happen in three notrump after West leads the heart five: three, 10, king?

There is that auction again — still the world’s most common.

Declarer starts with five top tricks. He will obviously play on diamonds. But when should East take a trick with his ace? Usually he would do it when declarer is playing his last diamond, but that is impossible here. Regardless, with the spade ace as a dummy entry, there will be an instinct to take the first diamond and return the heart eight, hoping partner started with A-J-9-6-x. Here, though, that does not work well, South having nine winners.

East should wait until the third round to see what West discards. If he keeps all of his hearts, East should lead back that suit. Here, though, trick one told West that declarer has the top three hearts. So West should abandon hearts, pitching one or two of them. Then East should realize that he needs to attack another suit. Given the board, clubs is the obvious choice, and here works perfectly, giving the defenders one diamond and four clubs.

If you know you led the wrong suit at trick one, try to discard from it as quickly as possible — assuming you can afford to do so, of course.