Sometimes pretty freak hands come up that require careful handling. See if you can come up to the Play made by south in a contract of 4H bid by him in the first seat holding the following hand with the dummy spread out on the opening lead of KC from West:
Assuming that there is nothing devilish about the distribution, let us put the reader in south's seat and see if you can plan your contract of 4H. One look at the dummy reveals that south can possibly have 4 losers - one in trumps and the 3 spades losers.
This is just heresy Bridge distribution can be curious. The trump finesse could be right for the contract or west could have the 10S or else both A&K of spades.
These distributions cannot be ignored completely and at times offer the only hope. Of course that presupposes a measure of good luck.
The vital question for south is to find the best line possible. Can you spot the right one? Yes, first declarer should cross to the AD in dummy and lead the 9S (not the jack).
Suppose east wins it with the top spade honour. It does him little good even if he now shifts to the trumps. For now south needs no ruff in dummy for the spades.
Conversely if west wins the spade lead from dummy, he cannot lead a trump without giving up a trick - even if he has started with all 3 outstanding trumps. For you can see that declarer can now lead a second spade and ruff the third one with the west east hands as under:-
The alternate option if west leads a trump would give south all trump tricks and the contract.
Some distributions in Bridge are unkind to the declarer as say in the next illustration.
North south back a contract of 6S with the following bidding:
The opening lead from west is 4S. Place yourself in the south seat and plan your little slam. As you can gauge, south has 10 top tricks - 4 in trumps, AH, A K Q diamonds and the AK of clubs. He is thus 2 tricks short of his contract of 6S, bid on a 4-3 fit with the odds unfavorably pointing to a possible 4-2 division of trumps with the opponents.
Needing 2 tricks, where do you find them? The best course open is to ruff 2 hearts in the dummy. But then again the suit breaking odds suggest a 4-2 division of hearts as a greater possibility, which means that if east holds 2 hearts, he can over ruff the dummy. This leaves the declarer with what? To beat off ill luck distribution, declarer plans to guard it with a counter move. Can you spot the winning play as south? Expecting spades and diamonds to behave unfavorably, he makes a distinctly safe maneuver of playing low diamond from both hands at trick 2. This is the perfect line for success unless the break of suits in spades and diamonds is 5-1, a trump return becoming best for defence has no worry for south. He wins, ruffs a heart, comes back with AC, draws trumps, cashes KD and crosses to dummy with the KS to score 3 good diamonds and his little slam. All he needed was to counter the odds with a more logical play.
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North
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J 9
8 3
A Q 7 5
9 7 4 3 2
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South
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Q 5 3
A Q J 10 9 5 4 2
8
A
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North
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A 8 3
5
A Q 6 6 2
K 8 5 2
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South
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K Q J 2
A 8 6 4 2
K 3
A 7
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S W N E
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1H P 2D P
2S P 3C P
3NT P 4S P
5C P 5D P
5H P 6S All Pass
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West East
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A 8 6 2 K 10 7 4
K 7 6
J 6 3 K 10 9 4 2
K Q 10 8 J 6 5
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