Contract Bridge

1. Win the club lead with the ace and trump a club. Play a spade to dummy’s king and ruff another club, followed by a spade to dummy’s ace and still another club ruff. Now cash the ace of diamonds and exit with either a spade or a diamond.

The defenders can cash two diamonds and a spade, but will then have to yield the last three tricks to your K-J-10 of trump opposite dummy’s A-9-4.

This approach makes it totally unnecessary to guess where the queen of trump is located or how the suit is divided. If instead you tackled the trump suit at the start of play, you might misguess how to play it and end up down one.

2. This is one of those sure-thing hands where the contract is certain to succeed with proper play. After ruffing the club lead, draw trump and cash the A-K-Q of spades. If the missing spades are divided 3-3, your worries are over, so let’s assume the spades don’t divide evenly.

Ruff your last spade in dummy and return the diamond three. If South follows low, finesse the eight. Let’s say this loses to North’s nine. North must now yield a ruff-and-discard or return a diamond. If he returns a low diamond, insert the ten; if he returns the queen or jack of diamonds, play low from dummy and win with the ace. Either way, you’re sure to make the slam even if the diamonds are divided 4-1.

If South plays the nine, jack or queen on the first diamond lead from dummy, win with the ace and return a low diamond. If North follows low, insert the ten; if he follows with the queen or jack, all you lose is one diamond trick. If North shows out on the second diamond lead, play the ten, and South must resign.