Bridge TAKE YOUR TIME, ESPECIALLY EARLY ON

Paul Simon’s “The 59th Street Bridge Song” begins: “Slow down, you move too fast / You got to make the morning last / Just kicking down the cobblestones / Looking for fun and feelin’ groovy.”

New York City marathoners can relate to that. The 59th Street Bridge is just past halfway, but it is tough because it has a steep rise and is very hard on the feet. The end of the bridge, though, is great because it is downhill and there are numerous people waiting on 1st Avenue to cheer the runners on.

At the bridge table, everyone should slow down at trick one. More mistakes are made at that trick than at any other.

In this example, how should South play in four spades after West leads a low heart?

In the auction, North made a cue-bid raise to show at least game-invitational values with three or more trumps. If this looks like an overbid with a heart king that could well be worthless, North’s hand contains only eight losers even if you count two in hearts, and has the valuable fourth trump. (Regular readers will know that I would have advanced with two no-trump, guaranteeing at least four-card support. I like to know when we have only eight trumps and when we have nine.)

South seems to have 10 sure tricks: four spades, one diamond and five clubs. How might he go down? Only if the defenders take one spade, two hearts and one diamond. But to get that diamond, West has to push the suit through the dummy. To stop West from regaining the lead, declarer must play dummy’s low heart at trick one, not the king.