Contract Bridge

There are times when declarer must make what appears to be an unnatural play because that is the only way to make his contract. South did exactly that in this deal and scored a game as a result.

First, a word about the bidding. South had a problem of sorts in choosing his opening bid. He considered the possibility of opening with five diamonds, but decided, correctly, that his hand was too strong for a pre- emptive bid. He therefore bid only one diamond, hoping to improve on his chances of reaching a potential slam contract if his partner had a moderately good hand.

As it turned out, South had to play well just to make five diamonds. West led a spade, declarer following low from dummy, and when East won the trick with the king, South played his queen on it! Declarer later successfully finessed dummy’s ten of spades to acquire his 11th trick.

Had South played the four of spades on East’s king — certainly the more “natural” thing to do — he would have scored only one spade trick and gone down one.

While it is true that dropping the queen of spades under the king is an unusual play, since it appears to reduce declarer’s number of spade tricks from two to one, the queen play is correct because if offers the only real chance to score two spade tricks. It is therefore not as odd a play as it might at first seem.

Most declarers holding the South cards would probably play low from their hand at trick one from force of habit, but this merely emphasizes the fact that there’s almost no such thing as an automatic play in bridge.