Contract Bridge

1. This is one of those cases where you can assure the contract regardless of how the NorthSouth cards are divided. Win the club lead with the ace, draw trumps and cash the A-K-Q of diamonds, discarding your club loser. Then ruff dummy’s queen of clubs and lead the three of hearts.

You can’t fail to make the slam if the opposing hearts are divided 3-2, so all your attention should be focused on protecting against a 4-1 (or 5-0) split. Accordingly, you proceed as follows:

If North follows low or shows out on the three, play the heart ten from dummy. If South wins with the jack or queen of hearts, he cannot avoid making a losing return. Whatever his holding, he must hand you a ruff-and-discard or lead a heart. If his original heart holding is, say, Q-J-9-6 and he returns the six, you play your eight to assure the contract. If he returns the nine, jack or queen of hearts, you play low, win with dummy’s ace and again make the contract by leading toward your K-8.

If, on your lead of the three of hearts, North produces the jack or queen, you can assure the slam by either letting him hold the trick or by winning the jack or queen with the ace and returning the heart deuce from dummy, planning to finesse the eight if South follows low. 2. Play your eight of clubs on the king. If North shifts to any other suit, you automatically acquire an entry to dummy that assures the contract.

If North continues with the A-Q of clubs, you play your 10-9! North still can’t lead another suit or you’d make four notrump, so he’s forced to lead his seven of clubs -- on which you play your carefully preserved six! North is then at the end of his rope; whatever he leads, you win the remaining tricks. If you were to play your six of clubs on the ace, king or queen, you could not be sure of making more than eight tricks and might go down one against best defense.

Tomorrow: Overcoming an entry problem.