Contract Bridge

At the start of play, declarer does not know how the opposing cards are distributed and should try to shape his play as best he can to cater to both normal and unexpected distributions.

Take this deal where West leads a heart against five clubs. South ruffs and sees that if the opposing diamonds are divided 3-2 and West has the king or queen of spades (or both), he will make the contract. There is normally a 2-to-1 expectancy that the diamonds will split 3-2, and a 3-to-1 expectancy that West has a spade honor that can be overcome by taking two finesses in the suit.

However, these are merely probabilities, and South should not rely on them exclusively. He should also prepare for the possibility of bad breaks in both diamonds and spades.

He does this by leading a club to dummy at trick two and ruffing a heart, then re-entering dummy with a club and ruffing dummy’s last heart.

South next cashes the diamond ace, on which West plays the queen. Since this might be a singleton, South leads a low diamond to dummy’s eight to set up a finesse against East if it becomes necessary.

This precautionary move

pays off handsomely when West shows out and East wins with the ten. East then returns a diamond, won by declarer with the seven.

The contract is now certain

regardless of how the spades are divided. South cashes the king of diamonds and leads a spade to dummy’s ten. East wins with the queen but then, having only spades, must return one into dummy’s A-J, handing South the contract.

Note that if South neglects to first eliminate dummy’s hearts, leaving East with safe exit cards in that suit, or fails to make the safety play in diamonds, he comes home lame.