W est leads Heart Ace. Plan the play.
Analysis: If trumps are 3-1 or 2-2, you have an easy ten tricks. Only if one opponent has all the four trumps, will you have a problem. Even then you can prevail, provided you take an extreme safety play of leading twice to the spade jack in dummy.
Play: Accordingly, you dump the king on the heart ace, at trick one! West continues the suit. You win with heart queen and lead a small spade to the jack. West wins with the spade queen, east showing out with a heart. West plays a third heart! You ruff in hand!, and play a second trump. West wins and plays a fourth heart! You accept the force again in hand, cross to the spade jack, re-enter hand by the carefully preserved club king, draw the last trump, and claim the contract.
If you had unblocked the club king at trick three and played a spade, west would win and play a second club. On winning the second spade trick, he would play a third club. The spade ten in the west hand will be promoted when you try to re-enter your hand later to remove the last trump. The four hands are:
Discussion: The extreme safety that the declarer took in playing for a 4-0 trump break is to be appreciated.
The extra care that he took in preserving the club king as entry to hand to remove the last trump was exemplary as it was needed as entry to hand to play a trump towards dummy's jack. You would have also noticed that unblocking the heart king at trick one is very essential for the success of the contract.
The beauty of the deal is that if west attacks the club entry to south's hand at trick two, heart queen will serve as entry to hand instead? Most players would unblock the club king at trick three, without thinking ahead and will pay a heavy price. Have you come across this safety play before?
A strange hand indeed!
The Ruff and Discard by the defender, and twice at that, was a superb effort… but declarer countered it effectively by accepting the force in hand! This is certainly Bridge at the top, both the defender and declarer excelling. To understand the play and defence better, draw a slanting line to each trick and play out the deal. Alternatively, use a deck of cards.
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