Combining chances

Selecting the best line of play in a bridge hand as declarer is not easy. Knowledge of odds and percentages can often help declarer find a line that offers a reasonable chance of success; however, with experience comes the ability to combine options skillfully, so as to take advantage of more than one chance.

Playing in a top-level team game against opponents of near world-class ability, I picked up the following hand in third position with neither side vulnerable: ♠ K-3 ♥ K-7-2 ♦ A-K-9-6 ♣ A-9-5-3.

The bidding proceeded passpass to me. This seems to be an automatic one-notrump opener since I have 17 high-card points; however, the hand feels slightly stronger than that and I considered opening one diamond and jumping to two notrump, showing 18 or 19 points. I might have done so had partner not been a passed hand; however, since partner had passed in first position, I decided to stay low and opened one notrump.

My left-hand opponent passed and partner bid two clubs, Stayman. I responded two diamonds, no major, and partner jumped to three notrump, concluding the auction. My LHO considered his opening lead for a few seconds, finally emerging with the two of spades.

Well, they certainly found my weak spot. Before playing from dummy, I had to consider my prospects. Since my king of spades was about to provide a trick, I had eight tricks on top. A ninth trick could materialize in one of two apparent ways. Hearts might be 3-3 or an extra club trick could be developed by ducking a club and relying on a 3-2 break.

There were difficulties with either approach of course. If I played on hearts and they didn't break, I would have created an extra winner for the defence. Now when I ducked a club, they would have five winners: three spades, one heart and one club.

If I ducked a club immediately and spades proved to be 5-3, once again the opponents would have five winners – four spades and a club.

Since the opponents were playing fourth-best leads, I might assume that spades were 4-4 and my best chance was to duck a club immediately. Not wanting to rely on the accuracy of this information, I decided to let the opponents tell me how the spades were breaking.

At trick one, I played low from dummy and captured RHO's jack with the king. Immediately, I led back a spade. The opponents were welcome to take their spade tricks, even four if the suit proved to be 5-3. In that case, an opponent holding three spades, four hearts and three clubs would be squeezed into submission.

My RHO won the second trick with the queen of spades and shifted to a diamond rather than continuing spades. Not cashing their spades was good play from the defence, but I assumed from this action that spades were splitting 4-4 and RHO was looking for the setting trick.

Accordingly, I won the ace of diamonds, played a club to the king (in case LHO had a singleton queen, jack, or ten) and ducked the second round to LHO's queen. The opponents cashed two more spade tricks, but the contract was secure. The full deal:

Gathering information about the layout of the opponents' cards is declarer's primary task. Using the opponents themselves to help gather this information makes the end result even more satisfying.