Contract Bridge

The number 13, regarded by many as unlucky, is, without question, the single most important number in bridge. Hardly a deal goes by where an experienced declarer or defender does not take advantage of the knowledge that each suit contains 13 cards and that each player is dealt 13 cards.

Consider this case where South wound up in four notrump. North’s raise to four notrump asked South to continue bidding toward slam if his one-notrump opening was based on 16 or 17 points, and South declined the invitation.

West led the king of clubs, East playing the jack, and continued with the queen of clubs, taken by South with the ace. Anticipating no difficulty at all, declarer next cashed dummy’s A-K of diamonds, but when East showed out on the second diamond, South unexpectedly found himself with only nine tricks.

Unfazed by this development, he made the necessary adjustment and came up with another way to score a tenth trick. He cashed the A-K-Q of hearts and A-K of spades, reducing all hands to four cards. At this point, West was known to be holding the J-9 of diamonds and 10-6 of clubs, while South’s last four cards were a spade, a club and the Q-10 of diamonds.

Declarer next led a club, and after West collected his two club tricks, he was forced to lead a diamond into South’s Q-10.

In effect, West’s distribution was an open book after the first six tricks had been played. At trick two, it became known that West had started with six clubs. At trick four, South learned that West had also started with four diamonds, and at trick six, South learned that West had started with precisely one heart. West’s two unknown cards therefore had to be spades, and all South had to do while cashing his remaining heart and spade winners was to keep an eye on West’s discards.