The Bridge Corner
By Gary Mitchell

Opening Lead: Heart Nine

The bidding explained: Please notice East’s Pass. He cannot make a Take-Out Double of Spades since he has only a doubleton Club. Sorry to say, you just cannot bid on every hand. 

The play: East takes the first two Heart tricks and leads a third, which is trumped by West. West exits with a Diamond, and declarer wins the Ace. Declarer now tries the Club finesse which loses and he goes down one. What rotten luck. 

Did he have a chance to make it? Of course, else no column this week!

After winning the Diamond Ace, he should play a trump to his hand. That means three trump are gone and two are left in the opponents’ hands. Now Declarer leads the Heart Queen. If West trumps, he overtrumps and tries the Club finesse. However, if West has no more trump, he gets to discard a Club from dummy. Now he can trump two Clubs in dummy and make the contract. It costs nothing to try this kind of play; don’t be a lazy declarer.

Questions: email me at gary@smabridge.com . Lessons: Call 152-6351