Bridge The Merrimac coup

Opening lead — eight of spades.

It is an essential principle of declarer play that when the outcome is in doubt, you proceed on the assumption that the cards are divided in a way that permits the contract to be made. To play otherwise would be self-defeating.

The same principle applies to defensive play. A defender should not credit declarer with a hand that makes the contract impregnable. Consider this deal, where East applied the principle very effectively. He won the opening spade lead with the king and returned the king of hearts!

From then on, South was fighting a losing battle. He won with the ace and returned the king of clubs, but West, of course, ducked. This rendered the dummy useless to declarer, and he eventually finished down two.

Now let’s assume that East had not led the king of hearts at trick two and had returned a low heart instead. In that case, South would win with the queen, establish dummy’s clubs and, with the ace of hearts still in dummy, have no trouble scoring 10 tricks.

The spectacular king-of-hearts play has a sound foundation. East reasons that if declarer has the ace of clubs, the contract cannot be defeated. He therefore credits West with that card.

Once East makes this assumption, it follows that the only way to neutralise dummy’s clubs is to dislodge dummy’s side entry. There is no way East can be certain that his plan will succeed, but he knows that unless he attacks boldly, his cause is almost surely lost.

Note that South can’t thwart East’s plan by ducking the first heart. In that case, East simply continues hearts to achieve the same result.