Contract Bridge

A surprisingly large number of players show a lack of respect for safety plays. What is particularly annoying about this attitude is that their casual disrespect usually doesn’t cost them a blessed farthing because the remote situation that they should be trying to protect against seldom occurs.

However, lightning sometimes does strike, and when that happens, these players often wind up bemoaning their fate. For example, consider this deal where South gets to six spades and sees — or should see — that the only way the slam can be lost is if he loses two trump tricks.

So, instead of dismissing this “remote” possibility, South should instead concentrate all his thoughts on how to overcome a 4-0 trump division, if that unlikely distribution happens to exist.

Accordingly, he should win the diamond lead in dummy and return a low trump. When East follows with the six, South should play the seven, being perfectly willing to lose the trick to the nine, ten or queen in order to assure the slam beyond the shadow of a doubt.

In the actual deal, the safety play pays off, and South avoids going down one. Playing the ace on the first trump lead would be correct if East produced the nine, ten or queen at trick two, or if East showed out on the first trump lead. In all of these cases, South could then limit himself to either one trump loser or none with proper play. (In the actual case, if East played the nine or ten, South would next lead a spade to the jack and later finesse against East to hold himself to one trump loser.)

This frame of mind — where declarer hopes for the best but prepares for the worst — is often crucial to achieving a favorable result. There is no good reason to incur an unfavorable outcome that could have been avoided.