Contract Bridge

Declarer makes a key play

This deal occurred in a 12-table duplicate game. The final contract at every table was three notrump played by South, which was in itself a rare occurrence. However, only one declarer made three notrump, even though the contract could not be defeated with correct play. All the others went down one.

The opening lead was uniformly a low heart. At 11 tables, the lead was ducked to East’s queen, and a heart continuation went to dummy’s ace, after which the club jack was finessed. West took his king and then cashed three heart tricks to put a quick end to the proceedings.

At the only table where the contract was made, declarer played dummy’s ace of hearts at trick one and next tried the club finesse. West won with the king, but the defenders were now helpless.

If West cashed the K-J of hearts, dropping East’s queen, South’s ten would become a trick. Alternatively, if West returned a low heart to East’s queen, he would be unable to regain the lead to run the rest of the suit. In practice, West chose the latter course, after which declarer had no trouble scoring nine tricks.

How could South know that putting up the ace on the opening lead was the winning play? The answer is simple enough. He reasoned that if the hearts were divided 4-3, nothing could be gained by ducking the heart at trick one. The only pertinent question, therefore, was whether the duck would gain or lose against a 5-2 division.

Since West would not lead a low heart from K-Q-J-x-x — he would lead the king in that case — it followed that East had at least one of the missing honors. Rising with the ace was therefore certain to block the heart suit if West had five of them, making the ace the proper play at trick one.