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Bridge by Steve Becker

By STEVE BECKER 2 min read

Most deals require nothing more of declarer during the play than proper technique. "Fancy" plays such as squeezes and coups might attract more attention, but in the long run sound technique will win a great many more points than all the so-called fancy plays combined.

Consider this deal from a team contest where both North-South pairs reached four spades. At one table, declarer won the opening club lead with the ace and finessed the jack of spades, losing to East's king. South won East's diamond shift, led the three of spades to dummy's ace and discarded a heart on the club king.

Declarer next led a heart to the queen, losing to West's king, and ruffed the club return. However, with no entries remaining in dummy, he could not avoid eventually losing two heart tricks to East's A-10, so he finished down one.

At the other table, declarer realized that with this heart combination, his best chance to score a trick in the suit was to lead hearts twice from dummy, playing for split honors or for East to hold the A-K.

Unfortunately, dummy's only obvious entry was the spade ace -- but there was a second possibility, and declarer made sure to allow for it. So, after taking the club ace, losing the spade finesse and winning the diamond shift, South led the eight of spades to the ace at trick four, hoping the nine would fall on the trick.

When East's nine did appear, declarer was a lot closer to home. After discarding a heart on the club king, he played a heart to the queen and West's king, ruffed the club return high and led the carefully preserved three of spades to dummy's seven. It was then a simple matter to lead a heart toward the J-7 to bring in his game.

Tomorrow: Maintaining trump control.

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