BRIDGE MASTERCLASS

HOW do you play each of the above contracts in 4♠? On hand (a), West leads ♥J, and East wins dummy’s king and returns ♣Q. On hand (b), West’s lead is ♦10. BOTH hands require the standard process of planning — count your certain winners, then work out the safest way of making any extra tricks you need.

Both hands have a fairly certain nine tricks and on (a) it looks as if the tenth depends on a 2-2 trump

break (only 40 per cent), but you can remove this risk by discarding your losing diamond on ♥Q; you get to dummy by leading a low trump twice to the ♠J10.

On (b), the option of either finesse is not as good as finding the club suit breaking no worse than 5-3. Win ♦A, then play the ace and another club. When you

enter dummy with ♠A, you discard ♥Q on ♣Q before drawing trumps.