Contract Bridge

Queen of hearts

It is obviously better to give yourself two chances to make a contract rather than just one. It is important to keep this in mind before settling for the most straightforward line of play.

Take this case where you’re in five diamonds and West leads the queen of hearts. You certainly can’t relax when dummy appears, since you have only 10 sure tricks.

However, you should not pin all your hopes solely on the 50 percent chance that East was dealt the ace of clubs. Instead, you should seek an approach that might give you a better chance than that.

One possibility is to win the heart lead, draw trumps, cash the A-K of spades and exit with a spade. If the suit is divided 3-3 and West wins the third spade, you are home free. This line of play is better than relying exclusively on the location of the ace of clubs, but it is still not the best approach.

A superior play is to let West’s queen of hearts hold the first trick! This unusual maneuver offers you by far the best chance to make 11 tricks. It is clearly better than playing the A-K and another spade, because it avoids the risk of East winning the third spade lead when the suit is divided 3-3.

In the actual case, once you let West win the queen of hearts at trick one, nothing can stop you from making five diamonds, whatever West does next. You win any return, draw trumps, discard a spade on one of dummy’s high hearts and establish an extra spade trick by cashing the K-A of spades and ruffing a spade. If the spades don’t divide 3-3, you can still fall back on the possibility that East has the ace of clubs.