Bridge Puzzle

Opening lead: king of clubs.

There are times when a declarer cannot deviate one iota from perfect play if he is to avoid coming home lame. For example, take this deal where West led a club against four hearts. Declarer won with the ace and led the six of hearts to his queen, on which West played the jack.

Now, in order to restrict himself to only one trump loser, South led a low trump to dummy’s 10, won by East with the king. East shifted to the K-A of spades. Declarer ruffed the second spade and played a low diamond to dummy’s queen, producing this position:

Declarer led the eight of hearts from dummy and finessed after East followed low. But when South then tried to get back to his hand with a diamond to draw East’s last trump, East ruffed and returned a club to put the contract down one.

Observe that if declarer has the foresight to lead the eight of hearts from dummy at trick two rather than the six, he makes the contract. He can later play the six to the seven in the diagramed position and then extract East’s nine with the ace. Technically, the lead of the eight — a card exactly equal to the six — is the correct play, but the fact is that very few declarers would have the presence of mind to make this play.

For details about local bridge events, go to the HK Contract Bridge Association website www.hkcba.org