Contract Bridge

It pays to plan the play

Opening lead — nine of hearts.

Some hands are much more difficult to play correctly than others, and today’s is one of the tougher variety. South arrived at four spades after East had overcalled and then taken a second bid at the three-level, marking him with the ace of diamonds as well as a powerful heart suit.

A heart was led and continued, declarer ruffing the second one.

Since a spade and a diamond loser were inevitable, the entire problem centered on how to avoid a second diamond loser.

Declarer realized that if he led a diamond to the king without drawing trump — in order to later ruff his third diamond in dummy — he would be subject to an overruff by West when East played a third round of hearts.

So declarer first drew two rounds of trump and then led a diamond, losing the king to the ace. But when East won and cashed the spade queen, South had to lose another diamond to go down one.

Perfect play makes the contract. After ruffing the second heart lead, the king and ace of spades are cashed, followed by the lead of the nine of diamonds from dummy. If East goes up with the ace, declarer makes the contract easily, so let’s assume East ducks, and South wins with the queen.

South still has the 9-7 of trump left, and all he has to do is to utilize them to best advantage. So he plays a low club to the ten and ruffs a heart.

Next he leads a club to the queen, which East may ruff or not, as he pleases. If East does not ruff, South trumps dummy’s last heart and keeps on leading clubs. The net effect is that 10 tricks are made, only a spade, a heart and a diamond being lost.

If East ruffs the queen of clubs, the result is the same. South still has a trump left in each hand to handle dummy’s last heart and his last diamond.

The suggested line of play would also succeed if West held three trumps. It’s all a matter of getting maximum mileage out of the trump suit.

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