A super safety bridge play
The bidding: East South West North 1 [S] 1 NT Pass 3 NT

4 [H] Dble Pass 4 NT

Opening lead -- two of hearts.

Declarer's first obligation is to make his contract. He must sometimes exercise extreme care to meet this obligation, but when these efforts pay off he has good reason to feel highly gratified.

Consider this deal where South is in four notrump and West leads a heart. East takes the ace and returns the nine, declarer winning with the jack.

South leads a diamond, West producing the eight, and declarer must now invoke an extraordinary safety play or go out of business.

First let's suppose he makes the normal play of the jack. He doesn't mind losing the finesse, which would assure him of six diamond tricks and the contract. In fact, by playing this way, he makes seven diamond tricks if the finesse wins and East follows suit.

But observe what happens in the actual deal when South finesses the jack. East shows out, after which South must go down at least one. The "safety play" proves to be a mirage when the suit breaks 4-0.

Oddly enough, declarer can make the contract by invoking a super-safety play. When West plays the eight on the diamond lead, South should let him win it in order to cover every possible division of the diamonds. If he does, he guarantees the contract absolutely.

Note that West can make matters more difficult for declarer by playing the queen when the first diamond is led. Declarer may instinctively win with the king on the a s s u m p t i o n that the queen is a singleton. But if South stops to remind himself that his primary goal is to make the contract, he concludes that it is better to duck the queen in order to fulfill his obligation completely.