THE ACES ON BRIDGE
Sitting South, plan the play in three no-trump. West leads the spade two and East plays the 10!
Having been favored by a friendly defense at trick one, don’t waste it. This hand is about combining your chances. You could play for nine tricks by simply taking the diamond finesse or the heart finesse, but whichever you do, you are consigning your fate to a play that is no better than a 50 percent shot. Clearly, taking the diamond finesse by leading the king, then low to the jack, is the better finesse to take (since a 5-1 heart break may prevent you from taking five tricks even when the finesse works, while running the diamond jack may not give you enough tricks against 4-1 diamonds). But can you do better?
First, try safely for five diamond tricks by cashing the diamond king and ace. Your chances of dropping the queen and missing five are quite robust -- in fact, that will happen about 30 percent of the time. But if the diamond queen doesn’t drop, you should run the heart 10, hoping the queen is right and you can make five hearts. Your combined chances come to about two chances in three -- quite an improvement on the simple finesse.
Finally, let’s revisit the defense. East erred by playing the spade 10 at trick one. If West had led from jack-fourth of spades, declarer would have had the doubleton ace and would surely have played the queen from dummy.