Contract Bridge

Bridge is not played in a vacuum. Many decisions by declarer are based on bids and plays made by the opponents, and not just solely on the 26 cards he sees in his own hand and dummy.

Consider this case where West led a spade against three notrump.

East-West were known to be playing fourth- best leads. Declarer won East’s queen with the king and could count eight sure tricks: three hearts, three clubs, a diamond and the spade already won.

There were three ways to try to develop at least one extra trick immediately: Play for a 3- 3 heart break; play for a 3- 3 club break; or try a diamond finesse.

There were two ways to proceed. South could test both hearts and clubs, and if neither suit broke, he could fall back on the diamond finesse. ( This approach would have failed in the actual deal, with West scoring three spades, a heart and a diamond for down one.)

The other possibility was to cross to dummy and take a diamond finesse without first testing hearts or clubs. ( This method wins in the actual deal, since West scores only three spades and a diamond.)

Declarer chose the second approach and made the contract. South based his decision on the fact that West had led the four of spades, presumably his fourth- best card in the suit. This meant West had only three spades higher than the four, but it also meant he could have none lower, since the deuce and three were in dummy. Therefore, the diamond finesse could be taken in safety.

It may be argued that West might have had more than four spades and decided to lead the four as a falsecard. Choosing a line of play would then boil down to knowing if and how often your opponents deviate from their agreements. As we said, bridge is not played in a vacuum.