Contract Bridge

It is said that necessity is the mother of invention, and certainly anyone who has played bridge long enough realizes that there are times when a player must improvise to be successful.

Take this case where South ruffed the opening spade lead and could see three potential losers — a heart and two clubs. Declarer had a choice of several lines of play to try to make the contract:

1. If the diamond ten fell on the first round of trump, he could concede the heart queen to the ace and then use dummy’s eight of diamonds as an entry to take two club discards.

2. He could play the A-K and another club at once, hoping that if the opposing clubs were not divided 3-3, he could ruff his fourth club in dummy without being overruffed by the ten.

3. He could lead the queen of hearts and hope it was ducked by the defender with the ace.

Eventually, declarer decided that his best shot for the contract was to lead the heart queen at trick two. In addition to the possibility that the queen might be ducked, this also allowed him to keep in reserve a follow-up plan that virtually guaranteed making the contract.

East took the queen of hearts with the ace and returned the ten of clubs at trick three. South won with the ace and thereupon led the five of diamonds to dummy’s six!

This unusual move — deliberately losing a trump trick he did not have to lose — had the desired effect. East took the six with the ten and returned the nine of clubs, but he was fighting a losing battle. South won with the king, led the seven of trump to dummy’s eight and discarded the 6-5 of clubs on the K-J of hearts to finish with 11 tricks.