Contract Bridge

It Only Hurts For A Minute

The bidding by the opponents often helps declarer find the best line of play, as illustrated by this unusual case from a team-of-four match.

At the first table,

West led a diamond against three notrump. Declarer took East’s king with the ace and played a club to the king, taken by East with the ace. East returned the nine of diamonds, covered by the ten, and West made a good play by letting the ten hold. As a result, South went down one. When he later led a spade to try for his ninth trick, East took the ace and returned his last diamond to West’s Q-8-7. All told, South lost three diamond tricks and the two black aces.

At the second table, after exactly the same bidding, West also led a diamond. But here, when East produced the king, South played the ten on it! East continued with the nine, covered by the jack and queen, after which the defenders were helpless. East eventually scored his two aces, but declarer made the contract, losing only two diamonds, a club and a spade.

The declarer at the second table obviously assessed the situation more accurately than the declarer at the first table. He decided that West was an oddson favorite to hold five diamonds rather than four, in which case he (South) could short-circuit the opposing communications by holding up on the first two rounds of the suit. He also realized that he didn’t need to score more than one diamond trick, since sufficient winners were available elsewhere.

It is rare for a declarer to intentionally hold himself to one trick in a suit where he starts out with two. But when the circumstances indicate that it is the right thing to do, declarer should be perfectly willing to make the sacrifice.