Contract Bridge

The long journey home

Most key plays made by declarer are arrived at through a progression of logical thoughts. Today’s deal illustrates how this process works.

1. After West leads the heart seven, South can count seven sure winners — three spades, one diamond, two clubs and a heart. Two additional tricks are therefore needed.

2. If West has the king of diamonds, a simple finesse or two in that suit will yield 11 tricks, so declarer focuses on those hands where East has the king of diamonds.

3. The contract is safe if the opposing hearts are divided 4-4, since in that case the opponents can’t score more than three hearts and a diamond. So the only real threat is a 5-3 or 6-2 heart division.

4. With this danger in mind, which heart should be played from dummy at trick one? Highly relevant is the question of who holds the ace.

5. West must have the ace. Assuming he has led his fourth-best heart, East can have only one card higher than the seven. It can’t be the ace, because that would give West the J-10-9-7(x-x), from which he would have led the jack initially.

6. If the king is played from dummy at trick one, it will therefore win, but the contract will eventually fail after East takes the diamond king and returns a heart. So playing low from dummy must be considered.

7. Nothing can be gained by playing low from dummy if the first trick is taken with the queen. The contract will still fail if the hearts are divided 5-3 or 6-2 and the diamond finesse loses. Allowing East to hold the first trick must therefore be considered.

8. Ducking the first heart cannot succeed if the hearts are 5-3 and the diamond finesse loses. (West simply withholds his ace when East returns the second heart.) But if the hearts are divided 6-2, the contract can be made by letting East win the first trick. In the actual deal, playing low from both hands on the first trick renders the defense helpless, and South winds up with at least nine tricks.