Contract Bridge

Five of spades

Point count can be used not only during the bidding, but also during the play. In this deal from a team match, point count proved to be very helpful. The contract was three notrump, and at both tables West led a spade. At the first table, East took the ace and returned the queen, which declarer ducked. A third spade was taken by the king, and the ten of diamonds was led and finessed. The finesse lost to the king, but since East had no more spades to lead and West had no entry card to cash his spades, South made three notrump. At the second table, the contract went down one after East played the queen of spades on the opening trick rather than the ace. Declarer could not be blamed for taking the queen with the king and trying the diamond finesse. When he did so, East won with the king and played the ace and another spade to defeat the contract. East’s play of the queen of spades at trick one was clearly correct. He was looking at 11 points in his own hand and 12 in dummy. Since South was known to have at least 15 points for his opening notrump bid, accounting for 38 of the 40 points in the deck, East was in a position to know that West had at most two points. Consequently, West could not have a side entry to cash his spades. East therefore played the queen to force out the king and in that way create an entry to his partner’s hand. Note that South could have thwarted East’s play by ducking the queen of spades at trick one, but he was naturally afraid that the whole spade suit would be run against him if, as was certainly possible, West held five or six spades headed by the A-J.