Wall might collapse into rubble

When you seem destined to fail in your contract, don’t give up. You might find a distribution of the opponents’ cards that permits it to be made.

Today’s deal occurred in a tournament. South was in four spades. West led the diamond queen. East won with the ace and shifted to the heart six. West won with the ace and returned a low heart to dummy’s king. What now?

South seemed to have four unavoidable losers: two hearts, one diamond and one club. Was there any chance to win 10 tricks?

North’s four-spade raise was preemptive, showing a hand with offensive potential for spades but limited defensive values.

The original declarer gave up without a fight. After winning with dummy’s heart king, he drew trumps ending in the dummy and called for the club eight. However, East was awake. He won with the club ace and cashed the heart queen to defeat the contract.

South didn’t spot his faint chance for success. He should have tried to establish dummy’s diamond eight as a trick.

After winning with the heart king, he should have played a spade to the ace, cashed the diamond king, returned to dummy with a trump and ruffed a diamond, which would have fortunately brought down the jack. Declarer would have led a trump to dummy and discarded the heart nine on the diamond eight.

Have you noticed that West can give declarer a guess? If he drops the diamond jack under the king, South has the losing option of a ruffing finesse against East’s hypothetical diamond nine. It is another example of playing the card you are known to hold.