Nothing succeeds in Bridge without laying down your plans in order of priority. For bridge is all about taking tricks, which is the essence of the game. Good players, therefore, pause at trick one to plan their priorities and then use their experience of card technique to muster up the required tricks.
In fact, this technique is like second nature with experts who, therefore, have their mental energy saved for the difficult contracts, compared with the exhausted average player not too well versed in good techniques of card play.
Such concepts or techniques may be simple enough like leading up to high cards, unblocking suits, ruffling losers before extraction of trumps, or they can be of the more difficult type like squeeze play, Mortons Fork, Trump Coup, Scissors Coup, Endplay, loser on loser technique, etc.
These help in the making of a good dummy player who keeps polishing his skills to enable him to better card placing of the opponents which can make him a consistent plus scorer. Dummy play, of course, has its points of interchange and somersaults of changes and reversals.
That is why the alternatives come handy whenever the top priority line appears to be not working, making it necessary for the declarer to change his game plan. For after all it is the discovery at each trick which gives clues to the subsequent plays of the hand, and a top notch player is all eyes and ears watching every card like a hawk. Todays Grand Slam of 7NT may look ambitious in bidding but is nevertheless well within reach of making at the hands of an expert.
The hands were as under: West led QH as the opening lead and declarer paused to survey his Grand Slam prospects. One look at the dummy and he could foresee 13 tricks if both Clubs and Diamonds behaved 3-3 and 3-2. But what if one suit does not break according to plan? Can you then find an alternative line to make 13 tricks? Cover the East-West hands, and give it a serious try.
Of course, you start with 2 top clubs and heave a sigh of relief when this suit breaks to your liking as 3-2. The Diamonds break evenly is a bit against the odds. The good technician at bridge will first utilise the other suits to gather inferences in the more crucial suit. Accordingly, the declarer cashes his 3 top spades to finds that West has 2 and East 5, with West discarding a Heart on the third Spade.
So far 6 tricks have been played-one Heart, 2 Clubs and 3 Spades. It is time to run your clubs to know more about opponents distribution in the 3 other suits. When you play QC, East discards a spade giving you his count of 5 Spades and 2 Clubs to Easts count of 2 Spades and 3 Clubs. West is left with 6 red cards. Can he have an even break of the red cards-3 Hearts and 3 Diamonds.
Thats a possibility, for that would give West 5 Hearts, which, coupled with his 3 Clubs and 2 Spades, can give West 3 Diamonds also. West has already parted with a Heart on the third spade. Its time to know what he discards on the last Club. West discards a second Heart 9H.
East of course parts with his last Spade. The stage is set for gathering the final clue. You play the K of Hearts, and West drops his JH. This is a pointer that West started with 4 Hearts and therefore has 4 Diamonds in all probability.
Accordingly, when the 2 Diamond honours are cashed and the 10D drops from the East hand, it becomes almost a certainty that West has 4 Diamonds and Easts JD and 7D are under Norths QD and 8D to give you the Diamond tricks and the Grand Slam.
But what about the bridge techniques we talked about? Do you see the snags, if not well versed in bridge technique. Yes, on the second Diamond, get rid of that middlesome 9D to enable you to finesse with 8D in Dummy, for otherwise you would be stuck with 9D and left high and dry.
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North West East South
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A K 7 J 4 J 1 0 9 8 2 Q 6 3
8 6 Q J 9 2 1 0 5 4 3 A K 7
K Q 8 4 J 7 5 2 1 0 2 A 9 3
1 0 9 8 7 J 6 4 3 2 A K Q 5
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