Contract Bridge

There are times when a defender must have the courage of his convictions and make a play that sacrifices a trick in the interests of defeating the contract. For a prime example, take this case where West had to play exceptionally well to achieve the desired goal.

West made the normal lead of a heart against three notrump. Declarer played low from dummy, and East won with the king. When East returned the ten of hearts, South followed low, whereupon West made the extraordinary play of the queen of hearts!

West knew that he was handing South an extra heart trick by overtaking his partner’s ten with the queen, since declarer was marked with the heart jack. But West realized that if he allowed East’s ten to hold the trick, his partner would be unable to lead a third heart to force out dummy’s ace.

Declarer could do no better than take the heart queen with the ace, lead a club to his ace and return a diamond. West followed low, of course, and dummy’s ten won the trick.

South’s only remaining hope now was that the opposing clubs were divided 3-3, so he played the king and another club. But when the clubs proved to be divided 4-2, he had to go down one.

Now let’s go back to trick two and see what would have happened if West didn’t overtake East’s ten of hearts with the queen. The ten wins, and East probably shifts to a low spade at trick three. Declarer wins, forces out the ace of diamonds and winds up with nine tricks consisting of four diamonds, two spades, two clubs and a heart.