When several different lines of play are available, declarer should of course try to select the one that will give him the greatest chance for success. But in making his choice, declarer can sometimes combine two methods of play in such a way that, if one fails, he still has the other to fall back on.

Consider this deal where West leads a club against three notrump. South takes East’s king with the ace and must decide whether to tackle spades or diamonds first. One possibility is to lead the ten of spades and finesse in the hope that West has the queen (a 50% chance). This yields at least nine tricks whenever the queen is in the West hand.

Another approach is to first cash the A-K of diamonds in the hope of catching the doubleton queen (a 27% chance). Superficially, it might therefore seem better percentagewise to tackle spades rather than diamonds (50% versus 27%), but actually it is not. The reason is that South can combine both methods of play by first cashing the A-K of diamonds.

If the doubleton queen appears, South leads another diamond to the jack, and, with the queen of clubs still in his hand as an entry, he has nine sure tricks. If both opponents follow low on the A-K of diamonds, South still has time to tackle the spades, thus giving himself two bites at the apple.

Note that declarer cannot reverse the procedure by playing spades first, planning to switch to diamonds if the ten of spades loses to the queen. In that case, East would return a club, driving out South’s queen, and declarer would then have no entry to reach his last two diamonds after he played the A-K and caught the doubleton queen.

When there are two suits declarer can tackle, the order in which he tackles them is frequently of critical importance.

Tomorrow >> Famous Hand.

— Steve Becker