Contract Bridge

Accentuating the negative

In some deals, declarer can tell at once that a particular defender cannot have a certain key card. So, while declarer can rarely be sure of every card a defender does hold, he can often feel certain about a specific card (or cards) that that defender does not hold.

Here is a case in point. South reached four spades on the bidding shown, and West led the ace of clubs. West then shifted to the ten of hearts. Dummy’s queen lost to the ace, and a low heart return from East went to dummy’s king. Declarer led a low spade to the ace, ruffed a club with dummy’s king and drew two more rounds of trump.

Having lost the first two tricks, South now had to avoid losing either a diamond trick or a heart trick. When the hand was actually played, declarer led a diamond to the ace at this point, felling East’s singleton king. As a result, South wound up with 11 tricks — two more than he would have made had he taken the tempting diamond finesse.

Unquestionably, declarer was lucky to find the diamond king unguarded. However, it was the kind of luck one learns to expect from good players.

South did not need to peek to know that East had the king of diamonds. The bidding had indicated this, since West would hardly have passed his partner’s opening bid with a hand containing the ace of clubs and king of diamonds. So, rather than play West for a card he couldn’t have, South pinned his hopes on the relatively slim possibility that East’s king was unchaperoned.

(c) 2020 King Features Syndicate Inc.