Contract Bridge

At times, a high degree of foresight may be required to achieve the best possible result. Take this deal where West led a club against six spades. Declarer won with the ace, played the queen of spades and finessed. Had South next played another spade, hoping West had started with the doubleton king, he would have gone down one.

But rather than put all his eggs in this one basket, South temporarily abandoned further trump leads in order to first play a heart to the ace and ruff a heart. Now he led a trump to the ace, and when the king did not fall, South continued his long-range plan by ruffing the nine of hearts and cashing the K-Q of clubs.

South then made his bid for fame and fortune by exiting with a trump. West won with the king but, having been shorn of spades, hearts and clubs, he had to return a diamond from the king, handing South the contract.

The hand presents an excellent example of planning the play. Having noted at trick one that his main hope of making the slam was to find West with the singleton or doubleton king of trump, South sought and found a way to add to his chances by setting the stage for a potential endplay against West if he had the guarded king of spades.

When the primary chance failed, the secondary chance came to South’s rescue at the end. South was lucky to find West with the king of diamonds and only three hearts and three clubs, but this is the kind of luck than can save the day for a declarer who takes the time at the outset to formulate a contingency plan.