Contract Bridge

Declarer should always remember that his primary responsibility is to make his contract — especially if he has undertaken a game or a slam. To this end, any chance to succeed should be tried, even if doing so involves risking the loss of an extra trick.

Consider this case where the defenders scored the first two diamond tricks and shifted to a spade. Declarer won and seemed headed for down one, since two spade losers appeared inevitable.

However, with 620 points at stake for making a vulnerable game, South refused to throw in the towel. He saw there was a reasonable chance to make 10 tricks and proceeded accordingly.

His first step, after taking the spade ace, was to lead a club to the ace and ruff a club high. He then led a low heart and, when West produced the four, finessed dummy’s seven! After this held, he ruffed another club high. When both opponents followed suit, the contract became a certainty.

A heart was next led to the queen, and dummy’s fourth club was ruffed high, establishing dummy’s jack as a trick. Declarer’s last low heart was then led to the eight, allowing him to discard a spade loser on the club jack and so make his game.

Without the first-round heart finesse against West’s nine, the contract could not have been made. Three trump entries to dummy were needed to establish and cash the fifth club.

It is true that by adopting this approach, South could easily have gone down two tricks instead of only one. But he rightly decided that it was worth risking an extra 100 points in a situation where he had a good chance to gain 620.