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Safe hand/Danger hand 

There are many situations as declarer when the success or failure of the contract depends upon keeping one particular hand off the lead.

This is the danger hand. It is, or will be, dangerous for you if this hand is allowed to take the lead. The defenders, in this case may be expected to take a barrel-load of tricks.

Very often, at the same time, there is, or you can create a safe hand -one which you can allow to be on lead because it can do you no harm.

In this situation, your whole strategy as declarer is concentrated in the act of keeping the danger hand off lead.

There are two most common situations where a danger hand exists.

1. Where a hand has several tricks it can take once it gets on lead. This is is usually in no-trumps.
2.  Where either declarer or dummy has a sensitive holding like        K 3 2, where the lead through this could be very damaging while a lead up to it will inevitably give us a trick with the king. A similar holding might be J 9 where the Q 10 is known to be sitting over rather than under ( ace and king already gone). Again a lead through this holding is bad while a lead up to it will give us a trick.

In all the hands that follow, try and identify the danger hand, and at the same time, see if you can make the other hand safe.

The contract is 3NT by South, and the lead is the queen of spades. East takes the ace and returns another spade.  Over to you.

Them danger hand is West who potentially has several tricks in spades, but you can make East safe by holding up the king of spades to trick three. When your club finesse loses, East has no more spades to lead back to partner, and you come home to nine tricks with four clubs, one diamond, three hearts and one spade. If you fail to hold up, then when she gains the lead with the queen of clubs, East will return a spade, and defenders will take five tricks to defeat the contract.

Note that if East declines to take his ace on trick one, there is a good chance that declarer will be defeated. 

The contract is 3NT and the lead is the queen of spades. All yours!

I'm sure you spotted that the danger hand is East who can paralyse you with a heart lead through your king. You have eight tricks on top and can create the ninth from the club suit. Which way will you finesse?

Yes, you must lead from dummy and finesse the ten. If it loses, West is on lead and can do you no harm. Note that while a hold-up in spades does you no harm, it is not necessary here.

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