At the start of play, it is usually very difficult to visualize what everyone’s hand will look like with just two or three tricks remaining to be played. Nevertheless, there are times when a declarer can foresee a successful end position.

Consider this case where West led the king of spades against five clubs. It did not take long for South to conclude that East was very likely to have the ace of diamonds on the bidding, so that normal play would almost surely result in losing three diamond tricks for down one.

Declarer decided that his best chance to avert three diamond losers was to try to develop an endplay against East. So, after ruffing the spade lead, he drew three rounds of trump, crossed to dummy with a heart, ruffed a spade, played three more rounds of hearts, discarding a diamond, and then ruffed another spade with his last trump to bring about this position:

South now led the four of diamonds, placing West in an untenable position. If he followed with the six, declarer would play dummy’s seven, forcing West to win and yield a trick to dummy’s king.

And if West instead played the jack on South’s four, the outcome would be the same. Declarer would cover the jack with dummy’s king and East could take the A-Q, but South would then score the last trick with the ten.

Tomorrow >> Famous Hand.

— Steve Becker