A bridge play that's fit for a king

Declarer lacks the advantage of seeing the defenders' cards at the start of a hand, but he will normally do just as well in most deals as if he saw all 52 cards from the outset. Many hands play themselves, and declarer achieves par without much bother.

But other hands require considerable skill in the play, and these are the ones that not only pose a distinct challenge, but are enormously satisfying for the real student of the game.

Take this case where South is in five hearts and West leads the king of spades. How should declarer play the hand?

If you look at all four hands, it seems that South must go down one due to the poor lie of the cards. He tries two club finesses, both of which lose, and since he cannot avoid a diamond loser also, he finishes down one.

This result could be attributed to bad luck, of course, but actually, South has a way of assuring the contract from the beginning. He should not stake the outcome on winning one of two club finesses, but should adopt the only line of play that will win regardless of where the club honors are located.

The key play occurs at trick one. When West leads the king of spades, declarer plays low from dummy and discards a diamond from his hand! West's next play does not really matter, so let's assume he leads another spade to dummy's ace, on which South discards another diamond.

Declarer draws a round of trumps, cashes the ace of diamonds, ruffs a diamond, returns to dummy with a trump, ruffs the jack of diamonds, re-enters dummy with a trump and takes a club finesse.

West wins, but must return a club or yield a ruff-and-discard. Either way, South is home.

(c) 2007 King Features Synd., Inc.