Contract Bridge

Where There's Life There's Hope

There are times when declarer sees he cannot make his contract if the opponents defend correctly. But at the same time, he has the great advantage of knowing that his opponents do not know what he knows.

Here is a typical case. West led a diamond against four spades. East won with the ten and continued with the king, ruffed by South.

Declarer realized that he could not make the contract against proper defense, even if the opposing trumps were divided 3-3. Thus, suppose he had led a trump to dummy’s queen at trick three. In that case, East would take the ace and play another diamond, ruffed again by South.

Declarer would now have only two trumps left, the king and jack. After he played them, exhausting everyone of trumps, the best he could do would be to cash five club tricks and go down one. The defenders would score the last two tricks with the heart and diamond aces.

So, to give himself at least some chance to make the contract, South led a low heart toward dummy at trick three! Fortunately for declarer, West followed low, no doubt allowing for the possibility that declarer might have three hearts to the queen. In that case, playing low on South’s heart lead would limit South to one heart trick.

But West soon found out that his seemingly innocent play had cost him the contract. After declarer won the heart with dummy’s king, he played the queen of spades.

East took the queen with the ace and returned a diamond, forcing South to ruff, but declarer then cashed the K-J of spades and all of his clubs to finish with 10 tricks.

Of course, had West been able to see South’s hand — especially the concealed five-card club suit — he would have put up the ace of hearts and led another diamond, leaving declarer no way to get home safely.