Contract Bridge

Assume you’re in six spades and West leads a diamond. Obviously, there’s a chance of going down if the heart finesse loses and you also misjudge how to play the clubs, so all your thoughts should be riveted on how to handle the club suit.

Fortunately, there’s a way to play the hand that virtually assures the slam. The correct approach is to ruff the diamond lead, draw trump, ruff another diamond and then play a club to dummy’s king.

Let’s say that both opponents follow suit, and, when you continue with a low club from dummy, East plays low again. You can now guarantee the slam by finessing the jack, not concerned with whether West wins with the queen or shows out.

If West shows out, you have 12 sure tricks, and if he wins with the queen, you also have 12 sure tricks. In the latter case, West will have to return a heart or a diamond, and either return hands you the slam.

The outcome would be exactly the same if it turned out that West originally held three clubs to the queen. In that event, after East failed to follow to the club lead from dummy, you’d go up with the ace, throw West into the lead by conceding the jack of clubs to the queen and also make the slam.

From the start, the aim is to deal with the clubs in a manner designed not so much to guess the location of the missing damsel as it is to make sure that if you misguess, you still have the slam safely in tow. Making the contract is far more important than trying to make the maximum number of club tricks.