Find a picture with the sun shining

Lady Randolph Churchill, the mother of Sir Winston, said, “Treat your friends as you do your pictures, and place them in their best light.”

At the bridge table, try to picture the opponents’ cards and how to take as many tricks as possible. What end-position must South picture in this four-heart contract? West starts the defense with the club queen, the club jack and the club two. South ruffs and cashes the heart ace, but East inconsiderately discards a club.

East, over North’s one-spade response, might have made a takeout double, but preferred to intervene in his strong five-card suit. South’s jump to four hearts was a slight overbid, but who would do less?

Declarer seems to have four unavoidable losers: two clubs and two hearts. Try to picture how he might reduce that number to three.

Can you see South at trick 11, holding the K-10-9 of hearts while West still has the Q-J-6? Then, South can lead the heart nine or 10 to endplay West.

However, to get to that position, declarer needs to ruff twice more in his hand. At trick five, he cashes the spade ace. Then, he crosses to dummy twice in diamonds, each time trumping a spade. Finally, he cashes the diamond ace to bring about the position he pictured.

Did you notice that West missed a chance to defeat the contract? If he had shifted to a spade or a diamond at trick two or three, South would have been unable to reduce his heart length sufficiently to execute the endplay.