Contract Bridge

When declarer is missing four cards in a suit, he should have at least some idea of how those cards will divide over the long haul. Mathematically, the expectation is that in 100 random hands, the defenders’ four cards will divide 3-1 50 times, 2-2 40 times, and 4-0 10 times.

Declarer might or might not be able to put this knowledge to good use in a given hand, but if he is familiar with these probabilities even in just a general way, the knowledge will sometimes do him a lot of good.

Consider this case where South reached six hearts as shown. He won the opening spade lead and, without giving the matter much thought, led a low heart to dummy’s jack. Unfortunately, East showed out, after which declarer could not avoid losing two heart tricks for down one.

However, if South had initially played the king of hearts, rather than leading low to dummy, he would have made the contract. Whether West took the ace immediately or not, only one trump trick would have been lost. After East failed to follow suit, it would have been a simple matter for declarer to trap West’s ten by means of a finesse.

The king-of-hearts lead is demonstrably the right play. It guards against four trumps in either opponent’s hand, preserving a finesse against the ten, if necessary.

Declarer should reason that the contract is a virtual certainty if the opposing trumps are divided 3-1 or 2-2. His only concern should be a 4-0 break and how to cater to it.

It is true that if East has all four trumps, a low heart to the jack would reveal the situation and allow the slam to be made. But since this approach fails if West has all the trumps, declarer should protect against that eventuality also.