Contract Bridge

Queen of Spades

Whenever declarer is playing a suit contract, he is faced with the questions of whether or not to draw trumps, whether or not to take certain finesses, whether to try to establish a long suit, and so on. Some or all of these things might have to be done, but the order in which they take place is usually of prime importance. Timing often spells the difference between the success or failure of a contract. Take this case where South was in four hearts and West led a spade. He won with the ace and immediately led the jack of trumps and finessed, losing to the queen. Back came a spade to South’s king. Eventually, he lost four tricks — a spade, two hearts and a diamond — and went down one. Declarer failed to make the contract because he did not get his priorities in order. By tackling trumps at once, he in essence pinned all his hopes on limiting himself to one trump loser. South should have seen that he could afford to lose two heart tricks and still make the contract, provided he escaped the loss of a spade. This could have been achieved by leading the king of diamonds at trick two. After the defense took the ace, dummy’s third diamond would provide a parking place for South’s spade loser. Even if the king of diamonds was allowed to win, a diamond continuation would establish dummy’s third diamond as a trick. In that case, the jack of clubs would serve as the entry to dummy for the discard. In most suit contracts, declarer plays trumps at once. But when there is more urgent work to be done, as in this deal, declarer should delay trump extraction until a more propitious time.