Contract Bridge

It only hurts for a minute

The bidding: South West North East

1 [H] Pass 2 [C] Pass 2 NT Pass 3 NT Opening lead — jack of spades.

Today’s hand features a play that most players would term “fancy.” We don’t know whether the adjective is appropriate or not, but there’s little doubt that declarer made the right play in the circumstances he encountered.

South won the opening spade lead with the king and, with only five top tricks in view, naturally elected to try to establish dummy’s clubs. So he led the jack of clubs at trick two and let it ride after West followed with the eight. East, of course, made the proper play of allowing the jack to hold the trick.

Declarer then led the club five and, after West produced the ten, had to decide whether or not to repeat the finesse.

After some torturous moments, South concluded that if West, who had already followed with the eight and ten, had started with either the K-10-8 or K-10-9-8, he would have covered the jack with the king on the preceding trick. Declarer therefore credited East with the king and so played the ace from dummy.

Since there was still no hope of making nine tricks without utilizing dummy’s clubs, South next led another club from dummy and on it discarded his ace of spades!

This “fancy” play guaranteed an entry to dummy — and therefore nine sure tricks — regardless of how the remaining cards were divided. A spade return by East would be taken by dummy’s queen, while a low heart or diamond return would be ducked by South. Thus, the queen of whatever suit East led was sure to become an entry to dummy’s three remaining clubs.

Observe that any other discard but the spade ace at trick