Patience is needed to know the story

Elbert Hubbard, a writer and publisher who died aboard the torpedoed RMS Lusitania on May 7, 1915, said, “How many a man has thrown up his hands at a time when a little more effort, a little more patience would have achieved success?”

Bridge defenders can be like that. Sometimes you need a little patience to learn exactly what to do. In this example, look at the East and North hands. Your partner, West, leads a fourth-highest spade four against four hearts. How should you patiently plan the defense?

After South opened with a vulnerable three hearts, North bid game more in hope than in expectation. However, he knew that the contract might be laydown; and if not, perhaps the defense would not be perfect.

East knows that his side needs four tricks. From the dummy, these surely must be either three spades and one diamond or two spades and two diamonds. But which?

It depends upon how many spades West started with — four or five? It takes patience for East to find out which. He wins the first trick with his spade king and cashes the spade ace, looking carefully at his partner’s second spade.

If it is higher than the four, indicating that he began with four spades, East should cash the diamond ace, then lead his last spade.

Here, though, West plays the three, announcing that he began with five spades. Now East must shift at trick three to a low diamond. If West has the king, the ace and another diamond works; but not here. South must be forced to guess what to do.