BRIDGE

There are hands where you are sure to make the contract regardless of how you proceed, and there are others that are equally assured but only if you play correctly. Here is a hand of the latter type.

West led the jack of spades against three notrump. Declarer played low from dummy, and East won with the king. East saw no future in a spade continuation, since South now almost surely had two spade stoppers, so he shifted to the seven of diamonds.

This proved to be the killing blow. South’s jack lost to the king, and West’s diamond return forced out the ace. When West later gained the lead with the king of clubs, he led another diamond, and South finished down two.

This was one of those cases where declarer could not be beaten unless he beat himself. South succumbed to the temptation of ducking the opening spade lead and thereby helped to dig his own grave.

Had he put up dummy’s ace of spades at trick one as he should have nothing could have stopped him.

At trick two, he leads the jack of clubs, planning to finesse (the jack is led in case East started with the K10-7). If the finesse loses, West is on lead and cannot stop South from scoring nine tricks.

It is true that in most deals declarer would play low from dummy with the A-x in dummy facing Q-x-x. But in this deal, where ducking the lead jeopardises the contract while rising with the ace ensures it, South has no choice but to go up.