Contract Bridge

There are times when a defender must revise his initial plan to defeat the contract and look elsewhere for the setting trick (or tricks). Today’s deal from a team contest provides a case in point.

Declarer won the opening spade lead in his hand in order to try the heart finesse, and East took the king and returned a spade to establish his suit. East hoped to regain the lead with a diamond or a club, in which case his three spade winners would set the contract.

After taking the spade return, declarer ran dummy’s hearts, forcing East to make three discards. The first discard — a club — was easy, but the last two were not. To keep all his spades as well as to protect the queen of diamonds, East decided to get rid of his K- 8 of clubs, hoping his partner could guard against that suit.

This made things simple for declarer, who next led a club to the queen. West allowed the queen to hold (South would have made an overtrick if West had taken the ace), and declarer had his ninth trick.

Nine tricks would also have accrued if East had thrown one of his spades to keep the club king. In that event, East would win the club lead from dummy at trick eight and cash his two remaining spades but would then have to return a diamond from the queen to yield the contract.

The trouble with East’s defense was that he had his heart so set on scoring his spades that he missed an obvious alternative. All he had to do was to discard two spades on the last two hearts and hold onto the K- 8 of clubs. East could then put up the king on the first club lead (if South had the ace, declarer had nine tricks), cash his good spade and lead a club to West’s ace.

West’s diamond return would then leave declarer with no recourse, and the defenders would wind up scoring two clubs, a heart, a spade and a diamond for down one.