Contract Bridge

A competent declarer always tries to find a way to assure his contract whenever it’s possible to do so. He does not relax his efforts merely because he sees that the contract is safe if the defenders’ cards are divided normally. Instead, he attempts to cater to the possibility that the cards might be divided unfavorably.

Take this case where West leads a heart, won by South with the ace. There doesn’t seem to be much to the play at this point.

Declarer notes that he can ruff a heart in dummy, lead a trump to the ace, ruff another heart, then play the K- Q of trumps, after which he can run dummy’s clubs and so score 12 tricks.

However, though this method of play is very promising, it presupposes a 3- 2 trump division, an assumption declarer cannot safely make. In the actual deal, if South follows the line of least resistance and proceeds as described above, he winds up one trick short of the mark, losing a trump trick and three diamonds.

Instead, South should try to arrange the play so that he makes the contract whether the trumps are divided 3- 2 or 4- 1. He does this by ruffing a heart in dummy at trick two, then leads a trump and “finesses” the eight. South certainly doesn’t expect the eight to win; rather, he plays the eight to maintain control of the hand if the trumps are divided 4- 1.

In the actual case, West wins the eight with the nine but cannot stop declarer from scoring 11 tricks.

It is true that if the spades turn out to be divided 3- 2, South loses a trick he did not have to lose by adopting this safety measure. But the 30point loss is a very cheap price to pay for avoiding the possible loss of a vulnerable game.

Tomorrow: Practical analysis.