Contract Bridge

To cogitate is not a sin

Opening lead — jack of clubs.

A defender is often forced to assume that a specific lie of the cards exists without knowing whether in fact it actually does. The defender makes the assumption after reaching the conclusion that if the desired situation does not exist, there is no hope for a favorable outcome.

Consider West's predicament in this deal. He led the club jack, taken by dummy's king. The jack of hearts was then finessed, losing to West's king. The question at this point was what West should do next.

After considerable thought, he found the only play to defeat the contract: He led the queen of diamonds! Declarer won with dummy's king, drew trumps and tried a spade finesse. East won and returned a diamond through the J-6, and declarer went down one, losing a spade, a heart and two diamonds.

The queen-of-diamonds play was far from just a lucky shot. It was based entirely on what could be seen in dummy and the play to the first two tricks, as well as the bidding.

West realized that if declarer had the king of spades together with the strong hearts and ace of clubs he was already known to hold, there was no possibility of beating the contract. He therefore had to assume that his partner held the spade king.

However, that would give the defense only three tricks — a spade, a heart and a diamond. One more would be needed, and the only hope lay in diamonds. Furthermore, the trick had to be established before the king of spades was dislodged; otherwise, South could discard at least two diamonds on dummy's spades.

Once this determination was made, the only remaining question was which diamond to lead. The play of the ace or a low diamond would hand South a second diamond trick whenever he held the jack; only the lead of the queen could neutralize declarer's jack if he had it.

So West led the queen, and South had to go down one.