Contract Bridge

Assume you’re in four hearts and West leads the club jack. East takes dummy’s queen with the ace and returns the queen of diamonds.

Making the contract appears routine, but when you win the diamond with the ace and play the king of trump, West shows out, and all of a sudden your “sure thing” becomes not so certain.

It seems you’ll have to find West with the ace of spades in order to eventually dispose of your diamond loser on one of dummy’s high spades. But when you lead a spade to the queen, East takes the ace, and your chances sink even further. East returns the diamond jack, and there you are, faced with a loser in each suit and a totally unexpected defeat.

But bridge is a game of twists and turns, so you start looking for a way to extricate yourself from what has become a rapidly deteriorating situation. And, if you work at it, you ultimately find the answer.

You win the diamond return with the king, cash the king of clubs and ruff a club. You then lead a spade to dummy’s king and ruff a spade. At this point, your remaining four cards are the Q- 8-7 of trump and nine of diamonds, while East holds the J-10- 9 of trump and ten of diamonds. So far, you’ve lost only two tricks — a club and a spade.

You next lead the seven of trump to dummy’s ace and play the six of clubs, placing East in a hopeless position. If he discards, you ruff with the eight and lose only a diamond. If East instead ruffs the six of clubs with the ten or jack, you discard your diamond loser and win the last two tricks with the Q- 8 of trump. Either way, East is a dead duck.