Contract Bridge

A good defender must be alert at all times. The slightest slip — no matter how insignificant it might appear — could be all declarer needs to land his contract.

Consider this deal where both East and West had to be on their toes to stop South from making three notrump. West led a spade, covered by the eight, queen and ace.

Declarer could count seven sure winners, and his best chance for two more lay in developing the diamond suit. Since he did not want to risk a heart shift by East through his king — which posed a real threat to the contract — he decided to lead the first diamond from dummy.

So at trick two, he crossed to the jack of clubs and returned the diamond three, planning to play the eight from his hand and thus lose the lead to West, who could not hurt him with a heart switch. But on the diamond lead from dummy, East alertly inserted the nine, forcing declarer to take the king in order to keep East off lead.

South would still have been in good shape had West followed low to this trick. But West did his part by dropping the queen under the king! Now there was no way to make the contract. Declarer struggled for a while but eventually finished down two.

Had West not gotten rid of the diamond queen, South would have allowed it to hold the next trick, after which the contract could not be defeated.

While it certainly requires presence of mind to drop the queen under the king, the play is clearly correct. If South has the missing jack, the queen is useless. If East has it, disposing of the queen might allow him to gain the lead in diamonds for the potentially killing heart shift.