Do You Start With Line A Or Line B?

In bridge, sometimes you see two chances to make your contract. Ideally, you start with line A and, if it fails, fall back on line B. The losing approach is first to take line B, and if it fails, you go down because it is too late for line A.

How does that apply to this deal? South is in six hearts. What should he do after West leads the spade jack?

In the auction, North’s response was the Jacoby Forcing Raise (recommended). It showed at least four-card heart support and game-forcing values or more. South, with a huge hand, used Roman Key Card Blackwood to learn that his partner had either the spade ace or the heart king. (Note that if South had had eight hearts, he would have wanted only the spade ace, not the heart king. This is a drawback of RKCB.)

Declarer has potential losers in each red suit. There is only one sensible way to play diamonds: take the finesse. In contrast, the trump suit can be handled in different ways, depending on whether or not you can afford to lose a trick there. So, South starts with the spade queen and the diamond finesse. When it wins, he returns to the board with a spade and leads the heart two. When East plays the three, declarer covers with his four, tying a world record. (If the four loses to the jack, the king will fall on the next round.)

If the diamond finesse had lost, South would have cashed his heart ace, hoping either

Win at Bridge Phillip Alder defender had the singleton king. To lead dummy’s queen, hoping West had the singleton jack, would be half the odds.