Contract Bridge

Bridge is a logical game. True, you have streaks of good or bad luck from time to time — depending mostly on the good or bad cards you and your partner hold — but in the long run the luck evens out, and the ability to reason well becomes the decisive factor.

Here is a good example of sound reasoning in both the bidding and play. South bids six hearts almost single-handedly, even though he realizes that if his partner holds the wrong hand, the slam may go down one.

Yet South should assume that he is a strong favorite to make the slam, as there are many more hands North can have that will produce 12 tricks than there are that will yield only 11.

For instance, North might have either the queen of hearts or queen of clubs, or a singleton or doubleton club, or four or five small hearts — and South would certainly want to be in slam in all of those cases. He therefore bids six, even though he might not bet the family homestead on making it.

South also plays the hand with equal assurance. He wins the club lead with the king, cashes the ace of diamonds and then leads the jack of trump! This unusual play guarantees the contract. In the actual deal, West can do no better than take the jack of hearts with the queen, establishing dummy’s eight as an entry, and declarer later discards his club loser on the king of diamonds to make the slam.

Playing the heart jack before cashing the ace (or king) assures the contract against any lie of the opposing trumps. Observe that if declarer were to play one top trump before playing the jack, he would fail if either opponent held all four trumps and refused to take the queen. Leading the jack first allows declarer to play the ten next in that eventuality.