Bridge is a game of logical reasoning. It is up to the player to seize the opportunity of making a play that is based on the inferential clues gathered from the bidding and then acting on it with intelligence. Every hand as its own peculiar feature calling for a particular type of play that fits the required criteria for success. But nevertheless problems keep coming up that may look insoluble but are still managed with a little bit of help from the opponents or some favourable lie of cards.
Of course there are countless techniques of Bridge that can cater to various problematic hands like Endplays, Trump Coup, Reverse Dummy, Smother Play, Loser on Loser and some Deceptive plays with deliberation. But as with all these plays at Bridge, timing is of the essence and without it everything falls apart like nine pins. A good Bridge player knows his timing well enough to execute plays with some confidence like the one made by our declarer in today's illustration who happened to be Robert Wolff facing this crunch problem on the following deal where north south reach a contract of 4S on a crowded bidding which went as under.
The opening lead from west was fortunately a mildly favourable one with AK of trumps on which east followed once and discarded 2C on the next. At this point our declarer is in a dilemma for he has to negotiate the heart loser as well as the 2 club losers that can crop up if he misguesses in it. But west makes it a bit easier for him when he shifts to a heart eliminating your heart loser when east's HQ gets quashed under the ace.
Place yourself in south's seat and plan how would you have played the hand with the only worry being how to tackle the club suit. For the critical point in the play had been reached. Once again you begin to gather inferential clues from the bidding made by the opponents. Remember west has opened and has produced the AK of trumps with nothing in hearts. He can therefore have either the AQ of clubs both with nothing in diamonds or if he holds the honour in diamonds, then he has possibly either the Q of clubs or the ace. One way to find out whether east held club ace or diamond king for his 1 NT response after producing the QH is by playing the diamond finesse of the diamond king which could give you the answer to your original query of how to play the clubs. But alas! That option can only cost you the contract if the diamond finesse failed. For then you are already one down with a club loser to go for sure.
So here lies the crucial test for you in play. If you are a good Bridge technician you can still use a discovery track to find out the location of the club honours keeping in view the techniques of Bridge to solve the problem at hand. Well our expert made a key discovery play that may not have occurred to you. Try this ruse. Take the diamond ace and lead the QD to test east. If he does not cover, you assume for certainty that he does not have the KD in which case east would surely be holding the club ace for his 1NT response. Of course if east covers the DQ with KD, then you play west for the club ace and take the finesse of the QC as your only chance to make your contract provided the club honours are split. In actual play east did not cover as he did not have the diamond king and held the club ace. Wolff ruffed and re entered dummy with a trump to play club to the king with supreme confidence to make his contract. His timing in diamonds to induce opponents to reveal their holdings was a simple but seldom attempted ruse in Bridge.
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North South
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98642 QJ1075
K76 AJ5
AQ8 7KJ74
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The bidding:
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W N E S
1H P 1NT 2S
P 4S ALL PASS
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