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 drawing teeth.

Safe hand/Danger hand (continued)

Let us look at some more hands with the same theme.

The contract is five hearts, doubled and you receive the king of spades lead. You got carried away this time ! Can you make it, nonetheless?

Easy enough to see that the danger hand is East, as a diamond lead through your holding of K 9 3 could be a disaster. You have nine tricks and can develop the tenth from clubs. How can you avoid taking the finesse into the danger hand?

Not obvious but you must duck the initial spade lead (West is the safe hand), and discard a club on the ace of spades. After you've drawn trumps, you play the ace of clubs, then the queen of clubs. If the king of clubs appears, you ruff it , re-enter dummy with a trump and take your remaining club winners. If the king of clubs does not appear, discard a diamond and continue this process as long as necessary. 5H* made ! Don't crow!

If you've not come across this technique before- it's called a ruffing finesse- have a look at this page.

The contract is four hearts and the lead is the queen of spades. Make your plan now.

Clubs is the danger suit but it is only vulnerable to a lead from East. We have potentially five losers in one spade, one heart and five clubs. How can we cut these down to two?

The diamond suit is the key here but we must tackle it at once before drawing trumps otherwise East will win her ace and lead clubs to our total dismay.

Unblock (see this page if you are unsure of this technique) by playing the ace of diamonds , enter dummy with the king of spades (carefully preserved by playing the ace of spades on trick one), and throw one spade and one club on your two good diamonds. You have now reduced your losers to three, and make ten tricks.

Before I offer you some to try yourselves, what about a suit which is wide open to attack by either defender? In this case, both hands can be counted as dangerous and neither can be made safe.

There are two things you can try here. If we name the two defenders North and South (with obvious orientation, I hope), South is the defender least likely to lead the suit, as it is NOT a lead through strength, while North might well be inclined to lead it, purely on the grounds that it is a lead up to weakness. Consequently, if you have the choice, lose a trick to South rather than North.

Your other possibility is to lead this suit yourself ! Quite often, defenders think that you are trying to set up a trick in this suit and avoid it for the rest of the hand !      Not a move for the faint-hearted !

OK, are you ready to try some yourselves ? Here you are.

When you are ready, have a look at these practise hands which encompass concepts from all aspects of declarer play.