Contract Bridge: Swapping Horses

Declarer sometimes changes his mind midway through the play and does the opposite of what he intended to do at the start. Usually, the reason is that he has discovered something unexpected about the opposing hands that forces him to reconsider his original plan.

That’s what happened on this deal, where declarer had to hold himself to one club loser to bring home the slam. When he first saw dummy, South thought that at some point later he would make the normal play of cashing the ace of clubs and then leading toward his queen, hoping East had the king.

This approach seemed more likely to succeed considering East’s bid. However, South decided to keep an open mind while he tried to learn more about the adverse hands.

After ruffing the heart lead, declarer drew two rounds of trump and cashed the A-K-Q of diamonds, discarding a club from dummy. South then ruffed his last diamond in dummy and, when East followed suit, radically altered his original plan of play.

Since East had shown up with one spade and four diamonds and surely had at least seven hearts for his leap to four hearts, he could not possibly hold more than one club. So, at trick eight declarer ruffed dummy’s last heart, then led a low club and played low from dummy!

It didn’t matter to South which opponent actually won the club. If East took it, he would have to return a heart, allowing declarer to discard dummy’s remaining low club while he trumped in his hand. In the actual case, West’s nine won, forcing him to lead a club from the king or yield a ruff-and-discard. Either way, South could not be stopped from scoring 12 tricks.

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