Contract Bridge

The Evasion Principle

Assume you’re declarer with the South hand at four spades, and West leads the queen of clubs. How would you play the hand?

When the deal occurred, declarer won the club lead with the ace, cashed the Q-K of spades, then finessed the queen of diamonds, losing to the king. East shifted to the jack of hearts, and three tricks later South found himself down one.

Declarer was certainly unlucky to find East with the king of diamonds and West with the ace of hearts, but, even so, the fact is that he did not play the hand to best advantage. To virtually assure the contract, he should have allowed West’s queen of clubs to win the first trick!

This play costs nothing in terms of tricks, since declarer still scores both of his club winners. More importantly, though, it ensures that East, the dangerous opponent, will never gain the lead for a potentially killing heart shift before South can score 10 tricks.

Let’s say West continues with a club at trick two. South takes the ace, plays the A-Q of trump and discards a diamond on the king of clubs. Declarer then cashes the ace of diamonds and continues with the jack.

If East covers with the king,

South ruffs, leads a spade to dummy and discards a heart on the diamond ten, thus losing only two hearts and a club to finish with ten tricks. If East does not cover the diamond jack, South discards a heart and achieves the same result.

If West has the king of diamonds, the outcome is no different. After South discards a heart on the diamond jack, West wins but is helpless. He can cash the heart ace at this point or can wait until later to get it. Either way, declarer loses only a club, a diamond and a heart, but in keeping with his plan from the start, he is certain to wind up with 10 tricks.