A lot of time declarers get bogged down in a difficult contract where the crucial decision involved determines the outcome and fate of the declarer. Here of course many fall easily because they hastily make a judgement without having reviewed the entire hand right from the bidding to the point of play and so possibly miss an inferential clue either from the bidding or the opening lead.
Let us take 2 of our illustrations today to press this vital point where an agile declarer can gain considerably. In the first of our illustrations, NS are in 4H bid as under on the following deal: The bidding has gone as under: The opening lead is the king of spade from west. And as you view the dummy you know for sure that you have a spade loser, two or possibly three diamond losers besides a likely club loser in lieu of the overcall made by east. Even if the diamond losers are curtailed to one with KD most likely to score, you still have 4 losers - one too many for your contract. Moreover in this hand, dummy is way too short of entries to establish the club suit that may give you the only hope of salvaging your contract that looks in grave jeopardy.
Place yourself in the south seat and work it out. How would you go about to make 10 tricks? Well, since clubs is the only hope you take your plunge after winning with AS and drawing trumps in 3 rounds with west following to 3 and east with the doubleton. If you are alert, two inferential clues are there for the taking. One, the east as the overcaller, is likely to hold all other points specially the KC. The question is how many clubs could east hold? Giving him 6 spades form the inference of west leading KS from a likely doubleton, 2 hearts followed leave him with 5 cards in the minors. What if east holds 3 clubs? Then the KC is not likely to drop on the club ruff after giving up a club. Well in that case there is no hope. But from the likely distribution, with west short in the majors, he is more likely to have his 8 minors cards evenly spaced which means there is a huge chance of KC being doubleton and therefore likely to fall out. So the key play here which you needed to find after drawing trumps was to lead a club and duck it low. Suppose east defends well enough to win it with 10C, cashing next QS and another spade for you to ruff. Now you lead the club to the ace, felling east's KC, cash QC, discarding a diamond and a low diamond towards the king gives you the required 10 tricks.
Our next illustration is of the following NS hands.
In a 4 spade contract with JH as the opening lead: On the face of it you have 2 club losers, a spade loser and a heart loser- a grim and poor chance of making 10 tricks. But as south you should not lose hope altogether and try to play the hand watching for any clues that might come your way. Well, east wins the AH and shifts to the AC and 10C, which is taken by west's KC. The opponents now play back a heart to your king. What do you do? Think on the opponents silence in bidding despite east producing 2 aces & QH. Can he then have the KS too? Most likely not. So play the AS and lowest's singleton KS drops with the opponents treating you as an expert who kills singleton kings only because he is just there on the Bridge Table.
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North South
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865 AJ
A9 KQJ654
543 K87
AQ642 73
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W N E S
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- - 1S 2H -
P 3H P 4H
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ALL PASS
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N
1087
952
AJ10
J653
SOUTH
AQJ965
K4
KQ8
Q2
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