Contract Bridge

There is a lot of guesswork in bridge, but a substantial amount of it can be overcome by careful play.

Take this case where you’re in four spades and West leads a heart. When dummy comes down, you see that your only possible losers are a heart, a diamond and two clubs.

You realize that the diamond loser might be eliminated with a successful diamond finesse, and that one of the two club losers can also be avoided if you guess which way to take the two-way finesse against the jack.

You may therefore feel that the outcome depends largely on whether or not this is your lucky day. But if you consider the matter more carefully, you realize that making the contract is an absolute certainty, and that it does not matter where the key missing honor cards are actually located.

So you win the heart lead with the ace, cash the K-A of trump and play a heart from dummy. East wins with the jack and presumably returns a low diamond.

Now, though it might go against your natural instincts, you go up with the ace, deliberately rejecting the opportunity to finesse the queen. You do this because by doing so you guarantee the contract 100%. Next, you ruff your last heart in dummy and then exit with a diamond.

At this point, it does not matter which opponent wins the diamond. The next play is bound to be either a club, which automatically eliminates one of your two potential club losers, or a diamond or heart, which allows you to ruff in dummy as you discard a club from your hand. Either way, you’re home free and clear with only one club loser.