Contract Bridge

Usually doesn't mean always

There are extraordinary plays that come up once in a blue moon and are missed by almost everyone. This is usually because the play is so offbeat and unnatural that it would not be considered 99 times out of 100. But when the 100th time comes along, it cannot be denied that the play is clearly correct.

Take this case where South won the opening club lead with the ace and needed to find a way to avoid losing a diamond and three hearts. Since West was likely to have the ace of hearts for his overcall, declarer’s best chance was to try to establish dummy’s diamonds, but this had to be done without allowing East to gain the lead.

South therefore cashed the A-K of trump, ending in dummy, and led a low diamond. He was planning to insert the eight and lose the trick to West, but when East played the jack, that plan had to be abandoned.

Instead, declarer took the jack with the king and played the ace and another diamond, hoping West would have to win the trick. Unfortunately, East won with the queen and returned the heart jack, and the contract went down the drain.

The winning play is not easy to see because it occurs so seldom. Declarer’s undoing came at trick one, when he should have allowed West’s king of clubs to hold the trick!

West can then do no better than lead another club, on which South discards his diamond loser. After drawing two rounds of trump, declarer cashes the K-A of diamonds and ruffs a diamond. Dummy is then reentered with a trump, and two heart losers are discarded on the 9-5 of diamonds to finish with an overtrick.

In adopting this approach, South deliberately exchanges an unavoidable diamond loser for a nonexistent club loser, but in the process ensures that East will not gain the lead while the diamonds are being developed.