Contract Bridge

Look before you leap

After you’ve played bridge a while, you learn — usually through bitter experience — that reflex-action plays should be carefully avoided. There is no reward for speed in bridge, and long experience shows that it’s far better to think about what you’re going to do before you actually do it.

Consider this deal where West led a heart against three notrump. Declarer played low from dummy, taking East’s ten with the queen. Next he played a club to the king, but when East wisely held up his ace and also ducked the next club, South found himself in dire straits. He could establish the club suit if he wanted to, but since he had no subsequent entry to his hand, he was out of business and eventually finished down two.

The sad part of the affair was that nothing could have stopped declarer from making nine tricks if he had played correctly. All he had to do to assure the contract was to play the ace of hearts from dummy at trick one, resisting the temptation to let the lead run to his hand. By doing so, he would have preserved the Q-J of hearts, one of which would provide him with an entry to his clubs later on.

After taking the heart ace, declarer plays clubs until the ace is dislodged. Regardless of which defender wins the club, no return can prevent declarer from scoring four clubs, two diamonds, two hearts and a spade for a total of nine tricks.

A heart return establishes an entry to the closed hand immediately, while a diamond return allows declarer to win in dummy and establish the heart entry himself. A spade return similarly causes no problem, since the 10-5-2 opposite dummy’s A-J-4 assure South that, no matter which defender wins the club and shifts to a spade, he has the necessary intermediate cards to assure the contract.