Bridge play has a lot of dimensions. Those who can't see through most of them have a limitation to their play. The more able declarer can see more to it than meets the eye and therefore, fares better. The expert is that one who can see through all the dimensions that could possibly exist, which gives him a wide array of options to choose and employ.
He also has his timing usually tuned up fine so that his order of priority in the play of the cards runs in best sequential order, which can give him the maximum odds in favour of making his bid contract that otherwise on the face of its looks pretty doomed.
Bridge is after all a game of hope and positivity. Unless you cultivate these ingredients within, you will not succeed as much as you want to. For it is only in the positive frame of mind that one keeps pegging off for the most favourable lie of the cards that can give you the boost and help in the making of the contract. But being positive does not mean one goes about in blissful ignorance of the most adverse distribution that could be existing in reality and which could ultimately thwart the declarer's best plan to succeed.
Today's illustration is from a hand bid long ago by a Jewish Pair, which was considered to be the best in the world in the year, just before the second world war, which ultimately tore them apart with one of the partners dying in the German Concentration Camp in 1941. The contract bid is 4H and the opening lead is the KC on the following hand.
As you can see the position for the declarer is grim since the trumps are not breaking evenly and the declarer clearly has 3 black losers on the opening lead. This is truly a hand where declarer's vision and sense of judgement play a more important role than the real merit of card play. But it does illustrate how an expert takes into account the most adverse of distributions and turns it into his favour by playing the cards in a sequence that would increase his odds tenfold. Of course as you can see there is otherwise nothing to the play if the hearts split 3-3. But declarer's vision was a far sighted one. He based his play on the hunch that trumps were not breaking and therefore planned his play accordingly. There are a few options in the obvious lines of play. One is to win the lead, unblock trumps and play a second club to establish communications. The second is to duck the first club to achieve the same result.
Placing you in the south seat how would you go about in the making of 4H on the opening CK lead? Perhaps the ducking of the first club has a better chance of achieving your target because of the fact that it conceals the best line of defence to follow, which is to hope for a trump promotion by playing spades. If declarer wins the first trick with the ace, the defence might find the best switch. So lets say you duck the first club as did the declarer.
West thereupon switches to an obvious trump. Now a spade from declarer tempts east to switch to clubs. Dummy wins to play a second spade and a club return is ruffed, with declarer now cashing the ace of trumps to get into dummy with one top diamond honour to reach this end position.
A spade was now ruffed in hand and dummy re-entered with the second top diamond honour to deliver the final coup de grace. Can you see it now? Yes the winning spade leaves east in a hopeless position with no way out. If he ruffs, his trumps trick evaporates. If not, the lead remains in dummy and east's J5 get crushed under declarer's Q10. The play was not entirely based on logical thinking for if the trumps were breaking along with the diamonds, declarer could have ended up with 6 heart tricks, 4 diamonds and the ace of clubs for 11 tricks. But reality is not a bed of roses, easily recognisable. For that you need inspiration.
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North West East South
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J9754 Q32 AK10 86
K 83 J542 AQ10976
AKQ6 10743 J8 952
A62 KQ94 8753 J10
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North West East South
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J97 Q 10 -
- - J5 Q109
AK 1074 J 95
- 9 8 -
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