Contract Bridge

A resourceful declarer tries to give himself as many additional chances as possible before he is forced to resort to the play that will make or break the contract. The trick, of course, is to spot the alternatives and then attempt them in the right order.

Take this case where South is in six notrump and West leads a club. When the deal was played, declarer won the club with the ace, cashed the ace of hearts and crossed to the queen of spades. He then cashed the king of hearts, on which East played the nine and West the jack.

Declarer couldn’t tell whether the missing hearts were divided 1-1 or 2-0, and, fearing that another heart lead could defeat him before he had a chance to try the diamonds, he decided not to continue the heart suit.

So at trick five, he cashed the diamond king and led a diamond to the jack. West won and returned a heart to defeat the contract. As can be seen, South would have made the slam if he had played a third round of hearts instead of attempting the diamond finesse.

One can certainly sympathize with declarer’s fear of continuing hearts when that action might have set him at once. Nevertheless, the fact is that he overlooked a simple way to test the heart situation without risking immediate defeat.

All South had to do was to lead a low heart from dummy at trick four. He could then win the club return, cross to dummy and cash the heart king. If the hearts broke, he was home, while if an opponent showed out, he would still have the diamonds in reserve.

In this way, South would have gotten two chances rather than one to make the contract, and that’s what good play is all about.

Tomorrow: Bidding quiz.