Contract Bridge

Test your play

1. You are declarer with the West hand at Three Notrump. North leads the queen of hearts, on which South plays the king, and you duck. When South returns the eight of hearts, you win with the ace and cash the

A- K of diamonds, learning that South started with three to the jack. How would you continue?

2. You are declarer with the West hand at Four Hearts, South having overcalled your partner’s opening onediamond bid with one spade. North leads the queen of spades. How would you play the hand?

1. It would be wrong to take a spade finesse at this point, because if it lost to the king in the North hand, you could go down one, losing four hearts and a spade. A far better plan is to lead a heart from dummy at trick five and discard a diamond! This allows you to eventually score five diamond tricks, which you can’t do at this stage because the suit is blocked.

The first two tricks disclosed that North started with at most five hearts, so there is no way you can lose more than four tricks on the suggested line of play.

2. There is a possibility of losing an extra trump trick on top of the obvious two spade losers and the trump ace. Your best chance to make the contract lies in winning the spade queen with the ace and returning a low trump from dummy.

Let’s assume South follows low and that you win with the king, which is very likely in view of the bidding. The correct play now is the queen of trump. If the trumps are divided 3-2, all your worries are over. South can take the ace of trump and cash two spade tricks, but you will then have the rest of the tricks regardless of what South does next.

The key play is the queen of trump at trick three, rather than leading a low trump to dummy’s jack. Leading the queen guards against South having started with something like ♠ KJ1083 ♥ A8 ♦ 92

♣ K854, in which case he would take dummy’s jack of trump with the ace, cash two spade tricks and then lead another spade, promoting North’s ten of hearts into the setting trick.