Contract Bridge

It is surely right to formulate a plan at the start of play, but one should always stand ready to alter that plan as new circumstances develop.

Consider this deal where South won the opening diamond lead with the king and led a club at trick two, successfully finessing the jack. Then, imbued with the notion that dummy’s clubs were his primary source of tricks, and lacking the entry to his hand to repeat the finesse, South continued with the ace, hoping the king would fall.

When the king did not appear, South played a third round of clubs to establish the suit. West won and led a diamond to dummy’s ace and the contract went down one. Declarer finished with six clubs and two diamonds, while the defenders scored two aces, two diamonds and a club.

South would have fared better had he not put all his hopes on West’s holding the K-x of clubs and focused more on the possibility of West’s holding the K-x-x. South could have covered both possibilities by playing dummy’s king of spades at trick three, abandoning clubs temporarily. Had he done that, he would have finished with at least nine tricks.

If West took the ace of spades and returned a diamond, South could make 12 tricks by cashing his spades and repeating the club finesse. If West did not take the first spade, South could then revert to clubs to finish with nine tricks.

While it is granted that the king-of-spades play at trick three is not easy to think of — considering the magnetic attraction of dummy’s clubs — there can be no denying that it is the right play.

Left undiscussed here is the possibility that a wily East holding the doubleton king of clubs might not have taken the king to lure South into taking a second club finesse — but that’s a subject for a whole other column.