Bridge

IT IS well known that hasty play to the first trick can be one of the most costly errors in this game, but a colleague maintains that the second trick can be just as important. To illustrate his point, he produced this deal and, uncharacteristically for bridge players, admitted that he had been the culprit...

South opened One Spade and rebid Three Spades over his partner's response of Two Diamonds. North explored with Four Clubs and, when South co-operated with Four Hearts, jumped to Six Spades. West led the 10 of hearts, and what had been only a moderate contract improved immediately. All that was needed was a 3-2 trump break and, without any further thought, declarer started on trumps.

The 4-1 spade break was a nasty shock and, although declarer played on tenaciously in the hope of an unlikely squeeze, nothing happened and the contract failed. To be fair, South was the first to spot how he should have tackled matters. Would you have done better at the table?

The critical play, of course, came at trick two. After winning the favourable heart lead, suppose that declarer had followed with the ace of diamonds and a diamond ruff? Next comes the king and ace of trumps to expose the bad break (of course, if the trumps had now shown that they were behaving, there would have been no further need to do anything clever).

As the cards lie, another diamond ruff follows, and, after cashing his winning hearts, declarer plays off the king and ace of clubs and leads a diamond from the table. If East ruffs, South's losing club goes away, while, if East discards, declarer makes a trick with his eight of trumps and East is reduced to trumping his partner's winning club at the end.