Bridge Corner
By Gary Mitchell, September 15, 2006

Last week, I explained how different defenders would handle this hand. The best defense is to play the Spade Queen, discovering that West has the King. Then, return your singleton Club. When in with the Heart King, lead a Spade to West, who returns a Club for you to ruff. Down one. Did you figure out how declarer can make this?

With that defense, of the Spade Queen and the Club shift, declarer should see what is going to happen. If West has the Spade King, then East needs the rest of the points to have opened the bidding. Also, East would be silly to defend like this with a doubleton King of Hearts, because all declarer would have to do is play Ace and another Heart. No, East must have three hearts. 

So, win the Club return in dummy, and finesse in Diamonds. Play the Diamond Ace, and go to dummy with a Heart to the Ace. Now, play the Diamond Jack, and when East plays the King, discard your last Spade. You have traded a Spade loser for a Diamond loser, but now East cannot get to West for the Club ruff. Declarer can win any return and begin pulling trump. By the way, this play has a name—the Scissors Coup—ince the Diamond play “cuts” communication between the defenders.

Questions: gary@smabridge.com 

Lessons: 152-6351