Bridge
7 October, 2026
Not going down too many
There are times when your contract looks pretty hopeless.
There are times when your contract looks pretty hopeless. That's when you should think really carefully about your line of play. If your auction has been more-or-less normal, it's likely that others will be in the same predicament, so to achieve a good score, the challenge is no longer to somehow make the contract, but rather to avoid going down by too many tricks.
That was certainly the challenge on this deal. Vulnerable against opponents who are not vulnerable, as dealer you open 1NT and everyone passes. West leads ♠️J and dummy is not a source of joy:
Prospects of making the contract appear remote. On the lead, there are sure 2 tricks in spades, plus ♣️A and one heart trick after knocking out the ace. Where can additional tricks come from?
You have 8-card fits in both minors, so either suit might be a useful prospect. However, what you have to realise is that if you play on clubs, you will almost certainly have to concede two tricks in the suit and it's entirely possible that the defenders will then be able to deny you an entry to dummy's long clubs.
If instead you play on diamonds, of course you would like to lead towards your hand twice, but the necessary entries to dummy simply aren't available.
Once you figure all of that out, it makes sense to just play diamonds from hand, conceding two tricks to the opponents. So you win the first spade and lead ♦️7 from hand. West wins with the queen and returns a spade to East's king, which you duck. East continues with a third spade which of necessity you win with the ace. You play ♦️K from hand and East wins this. He returns ♣️K.
What do you know now? Spades must be 6-3 as East hasn't sent another one back. And it seems East has ♣️Q. Of course if West has ❤️A you will in due course go down, but at this point you can cash your 3 established diamond tricks. Together with the 2 spade tricks and the club trick you have already won, you're up to 6 tricks, and you can exit with ♣️10 to East's queen.
As the cards lie, things get very interesting, because this was the complete deal:
East wins ♣️Q and is stuck. He returns his last remaining club which you win in dummy, breathing a sigh of relief at having made your contract. When you play a heart towards your queen, East ducks – and you win, ending up with an overtrick!
By contrast if you had played on clubs you would be at least 2 down, possibly 3 down if you misguessed the diamonds. At -100 per undertrick that would look ugly.
Sometimes the best approach to establishing a suit is simply to concede the tricks you are in any case likely to lose.
Rakesh Kumar
The Southern Highlands Bridge Club runs three duplicate sessions every week (Mon 1:00 pm, Wed 6:30 pm, Sat 1:00 pm) at the East Bowral Community Centre. Highlands players and visitors welcome!
For more information: https://shbc.bridgeaustralia.org
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