Contract Bridge

The Right Time For Action

If the only way to defeat a contract depends upon your partner having a certain card, and if your partner’s holding that card is consistent with the bidding, then you should proceed on the assumption that he has that card. To play otherwise would essentially be self-defeating. For example, consider this deal where South is in four spades and West leads the queen of hearts. Declarer wins with the king and draws three rounds of trumps, ending in dummy. The three of clubs is then led to the jack, losing to West’s queen. What should West play next? Actually, there is only one card he can return to defeat the contract: the jack of diamonds! If he leads that card, South goes down; if he leads any other card, South makes four spades. The jack is the killing play because declarer cannot then avoid the loss of three diamond tricks regardless of what he does. But if West leads the ace of diamonds or a low diamond, South can hold himself to two diamond losers with proper play. How can West know that the jack of diamonds — and only the jack of diamonds — is the right play? West sees that declarer has five trump tricks, the A-K of hearts and the ace of clubs. It is also fairly obvious that South took a club finesse at trick five with a holding that included the K-J. This brings declarer to nine sure tricks. If West also credits South with the king of diamonds, he might as well give up and go home. Instead, he must assume that East has the king and that declarer has three diamonds. To do otherwise, as we said earlier, is a form of self-destruction.