Assume you’re in four spades and West leads the K-Q and another diamond, which you ruff.
There seems to be nothing to the play, but when you cash the ace of spades and East discards a heart, the outlook changes completely.
Now you are apparently doomed to fail in a contract that a moment before seemed cold for 10 or 11 tricks.
But faint heart ne’er won fair lady, and it certainly wouldn’t be right to give up just yet. You still have a chance, since it might be possible to arrange a trump endplay against West if he started with exactly the right distribution (4-3-3-3).
So you cash the ace of hearts at trick five, cross to dummy with a club, ruff a heart, lead another club to dummy and ruff a second heart. Then, with fingers crossed, you play the ace of clubs, hoping West will follow suit. When he does, you’ve got him.
Ten tricks have been played thus far, and your last three cards are the K-10-7 of trumps, while West has the Q-J-8. All you have to do now is to lead a low trump toward dummy’s nine, and West will find he can score only one trump trick rather than the two that seemed so certain at the outset.
It is true that West could have held many distributions other than the one he actually had, in which case he would have been able to ruff one of your club leads or overruff one of the heart leads from dummy to avert the endplay. But, even so, you would have been no worse off for having tried to make the contract and failed.
(c) 2012 King Features Synd., Inc.
Entertainment, Pages 19 on 11/07/2012