Contract Bridge

Instinctive plays can be costly

Bridge is a game with lots of rules, but it is important to remember that just about all of them have their exceptions. When a player’s common sense tells him that following a general principle can’t gain and might lose, he should abandon normal procedure on that occasion.

Consider this case where South arrived at three notrump on the bidding shown. Since hearts was the only unbid suit, West led a heart, on which declarer played low from dummy.

The outcome now hinged on what card

East chose to play to the first trick. Had he mechanically followed the general rule of “third hand high” and played the queen, declarer would have made the contract. But East, after thinking the matter over, decided to play the ten, forcing South to win with the jack.

Declarer had only seven tricks available at this point and could not make any more without tackling clubs. When he did, West took the ace and played the A-7 of hearts, whereupon East won with the queen and ran his suit for a one-trick set.

East’s play of the ten on the first trick was well reasoned. If South had both the ace and jack of hearts, it didn’t matter whether East played the ten or queen.

And if declarer had just the ace, the ten would be equally as effective as the queen.

But if declarer had the jack and West the ace, the play of the ten was vital in order to preserve the queen as a subsequent entry to the rest of the suit. If the queen were played first, East would effectively kill any chance of scoring his remaining hearts.

It is certainly true that playing the queen would have won the first trick instead of losing it. But that is not the issue, since East’s aim is to defeat the contract. To that end, who won the opening trick was an insignificant consideration.