Contract Bridge

Here is a tale of long-distance planning that turned out remarkably well.

West led a spade against five diamonds, and declarer realized that, given the bidding, he would probably go down with normal play. He had a right to assume that East had the king of clubs, but this in turn meant that West was sure to have the ace of hearts for his opening bid. So, although he could avoid a club loser, he would eventually lose three heart tricks and go down one.

Faced with this problem -- a difficult one to solve even with all 52 cards exposed -- South came up with a brilliant solution. For starters, he ducked the opening lead of the king of spades!

West could do no better than play another spade, which declarer ruffed. South now cashed dummy’s A-K of trumps, taking care to retain his deuce, after which he led the queen of clubs, which held. Next came the key play: He cashed the ace of spades and on it discarded the ace of clubs!

Having thus gotten out of his own way, declarer now led dummy’s jack of clubs. When East covered with the king, South ruffed high and re-entered dummy by leading his carefully preserved deuce of diamonds to dummy’s four. He then discarded two hearts on the 10-9 of clubs, lost a heart trick to the ace and so made the contract. Note that five diamonds could not have been made except in the highly unusual manner shown. But while South’s play might be deemed sensational, plays of this sort do more than make a good story; they also make good sense.