Contract Bridge

An instinctive play is not necessarily the correct play, as East discovered to his sorrow on this deal.

West led the five of diamonds against four hearts. Declarer played low from dummy, hoping West had the queen, but East won with the queen and cashed the ace.

When West followed suit with the deuce of diamonds, East knew his partner had led from a five- card suit, but without giving the matter further thought, he returned the jack of spades. This seemed a very natural thing to do, but it eventually cost East the contract.

South went up with the ace of spades, led a club to the ace and ruffed a club. He next led a low trump to dummy’s eight, ruffed another club, played a trump to the nine and ruffed still another club, establishing dummy’s jack as a trick. Declarer then led a trump to the queen and discarded a spade on the jack of clubs, losing a spade at the end to make the contract.

Granting that East’s spade return at trick three looked very attractive, it was nevertheless the wrong play. Had he returned a trump instead, South would have gone down one.

The advantage of the trump return is that it uses up one of dummy’s entries prematurely. South can still establish a club trick if he wants to, but he will be unable to reach it and must eventually lose two spade tricks.

East should reason that any spade losers South might have cannot fly away if he returns a trump, since his club holding assures that declarer will not be able to establish and utilize an extra winner in the club suit. However, a spade return might allow declarer to establish dummy’s fifth club, with dummy’s third trump providing the critical entry to collect it.