Safety play is a term for a comprehensive bridge technique of play that is employed by the declarer to achieve success in making a contract. This technique, among others, is of vital importance, which requires a cool head and planning. It certainly obviates the element of emotional approach in executing the contract.
As the French bridge expert and an important member of French bridge team, Roger Trezel, emphasised the point that to be able to grasp the technique of safety play one has to study the theory of the game plus one has to have a developed card sense to apply it.
He further advised the bridge players not to rush through conclusions or the line of play in tackling any bridge deal on merits. To illustrate his viewpoint he had given a layout of the hand, which he had played during a match in European Championship that explains the essence of technique that can be applied in any deal of a similar combination of cards. And he succeeded in making a contract, which pushed him to 5 spades owing to competitive bidding, whereas on the other table the player of fairly good standing went down by one trick in a contract of five spades.
The complete hand with the bidding is given below.
WEST LED DIAMOND KING: When the partner laid down the dummy, Trezel took a good look at it. There were three glaring losers one in heart and two in club suit that meant he would fail in the contract by one trick. But his card sense (Bridge sense) came to his rescue and instantly he thought if the heart suit is divided 2-3 he stood a chance of making the contract if he could ruff one heart in hand. For which he had to discard a small heart from hand on the ace of diamond.
Accordingly he ducked the king of diamonds in dummy as well as from hand. When the West continued with the diamond queen the South discarded a small heart. Then he played two rounds of trumps and played the ace king of hearts and ruffed a small heart in hand. Later he entered the dummy with a trump and discarded the two losing clubs on two remaining good cards in heart to bring home the contract, ultimately losing only one diamond and one club only.
This was a perfect safety play technique to make a contract of five spades. It was a very claver play by Trezel who did not rely on percentage play of divided honours with the opponents. In that case also he would have made the contract but this was a surer line of play if the adverse cards were divided 2-3.
Whereas the opponent holding the identical cards on the other table reached a similar contract after competitive bidding, but failed to make a contract on winning the first trick with the diamond ace in dummy.
Later he had no way in avoiding two losers in club in one loser in heart.
North-South vulnerable
S K1084
H K9876
D A2
C 43
S 6
H 43
D KQJ9876
C AQJ
S 32
H QJ5
D 1054
C 109852
S AQJ975
H A102
D 3
C K76

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South  West  North  East
Trezel
1S     2D    3S     Pass
4S     5D   Pass    Pass
5S    Pass  Pass    Pass
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GOLDEN TIPS: Playing technique comes through deep study of the game and it can be also be developed further.