Contract Bridge

It is very common for declarer to have a choice of two or more ways to play a hand. When this happens, the logical solution is to try to select the approach that offers the best mathematical chance of success. You can’t do better than choose the line of play that is most likely to win.

Consider this deal where West leads a heart against six clubs. Declarer starts with 11 sure tricks and is looking for a 12th. How should he proceed?

There is one obvious line of play. That is to rely on a diamond finesse; if it works, South can discard a spade on a heart and can’t lose more than one spade trick.

Another possibility is to discard a spade on a high heart and concede a spade trick with an eye toward establishing dummy’s spades by ruffing the third round of the suit. But this would put you in an awkward position if West won and shifted to a diamond. In the actual deal, both approaches would fail, and South would go down one.

But there is a third line of play, far less obvious, that has a much better chance of succeeding. Declarer simply plays the three of hearts from dummy on the opening lead, allowing East to win the trick! This enables South to pin his hopes on a 3-2 spade division (a 68 percent chance) rather than on the location of the king of diamonds (a 50 percent chance).

Let’s assume East takes the heart lead with the jack and shifts to a trump. South wins with the nine, plays a spade to the ace, discards the J- 5 of spades on the A- K of hearts and ruffs a spade high. Declarer then leads a trump to dummy’s jack and ruffs another spade, establishing dummy’s 8-7 of spades. South then draws the missing trump, crosses to the diamond ace and discards his diamond loser on one of dummy’s spades to secure the slam.