BRIDGE

Assume you, East, are defending against four hearts after the auction shown. Your partner leads the eight of spades, and you take the king and ace as everyone follows suit. What would you do next?

More than a few players might lead the 10 of hearts at this point. They would reason that a diamond or club return into dummy’s strong holdings would be pointless, while a spade return would yield a ruff-and-discard. The trump shift would thus seem the safest course of action.

This line of reasoning is fallacious, however. While the trump return may appear safe, it does nothing to further the chances of defeating the contract. It merely maintains the status quo.

East should reason instead that unless the defence can score two trump tricks, the contract cannot be defeated. If West happens to have two natural heart winners, then it won’t make any difference what East returns at trick three. West will get his two trump tricks, and South will go down one.

East should ask himself what might be done if West has only one natural trump winner. In that case, it may be possible to promote a second trump trick for West by returning a spade at this point, purposely conceding a ruff-and-discard. Declarer is hardly likely to benefit from this since all of his side-suit cards are apparent winners.

As the cards lie, this plan succeeds. If South ruffs the spade with the heart jack, West carefully refuses to overruff and later scores both the king and nine of hearts. If declarer does anything else at trick three, West is equally certain to get two trump tricks. Once East overcomes the stigma of yielding a ruff-and-discard, all roads lead to down one.