Contract Bridge

If you know of a player who always seems to guess the location of a missing queen, don’t dismiss him as just being exceptionally lucky. Chances are the fellow knows exactly what he’s doing.

Consider this deal where South was in four hearts and West led the K-A-Q of diamonds, declarer ruffing the third diamond as East discarded a club. Having lost the first two tricks, declarer now had to deal with the possibility of also losing a spade and a trump to the missing queen.

The potential trump loser could be avoided by guessing correctly whether to simply cash the A-K, or whether to cash only the ace and then take a finesse against East on the basis that East’s diamond shortness made him more likely to have length in hearts.

But rather than commit himself one way or the other, South adopted a line of play designed to eliminate altogether the danger of misguessing. He began by cashing the K-A-Q of clubs. (Had West started with only two clubs and trumped the third club lead, dummy would have been able to overruff.)

Next came the ace of spades followed by a spade to the king. When West followed to both spades, making the contract became a certainty.

Declarer next cashed the ace of hearts and then led the jack. When East followed low, the jack was allowed to ride. It didn’t matter to South whether the finesse won or lost -- he was sure to take the rest of the tricks.

Since West had already shown up with six diamonds, two spades, three clubs and a heart, there was room in his hand for only one more card. If it was a spade or a club, the heart finesse against East would succeed. And if West’s unknown card was the heart queen, West would win but would then be forced to return a diamond, allowing declarer to ruff in dummy and discard his spade loser.

Just another lucky guess!