CONTRACT BRIDGE

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXII, Issue 22009, 16 January 1935, Page 13

CONTRACT BRIDGE

PLAY OF THE HAND THIRD PARTY'S DEFENCE BY FINESSE The series of articles on the play of the hand, primarily for beginners, appearing during the last few weeks, will now be olosed with a few remarks on third-hand defence. It is hoped that these articles have served their purpose and have been of some assistance to those players who require instruction in planning the play of the hand and defensive plifv. Third hand, tl*e partner of the opening leader, often holds the key to the defence against the declaration. The conventional signals given by third hand have already been discussed in a previous article, and we now come to the other plays by the third hand. Third hand high is an old bridge axiom, which, however, should be disregarded almost as often as it should be observed. Third hand should play high if dummy has worthless cards in the suit led by his pai-tner, if ho did not he would be finessing against his partner, and it would be impossible for the opening leader to determine where the high cards in the suit were located. But where the dummy contains some high card or cards over which third hand holds a tenace or position card, there is nothing gained by sacrificing the advantage of position and playing third hand high; here he is not finessing against his partner, but against dummy.

Against South's no-trump contract West leads the spade deuce. When dummy's three is played East plays the jack, which South takeis with tlie queen. By playing the jack East retained the ace with which to kill dummy's king, if .East played the ace at once in observance of the axiom the declarer would take two tricks in the suit instead of only one, because the kine and queen would both be high after East's play of the ace. From this it would seem to follow that third hand should not set up a card in dummy, but there are exceptions:

West leads the heart deuce against South's four-spade contract. But now the situation is entirely changed. East, by applying the rule of eleven knows that South holds only one card in the suit and that the ace must be played at once or it will bo ruffed by the declarer later. Play From a Sequence In leading a suit in which a sequence is held Jt is customary to lead the top of .the sequence, so that partner will know that the leader holds the next card lower; but in following suit it is customary to play the lowest card of a sequence:—

A.10.8.2. West leads the' heart four and declarer plays the dummv's five. East plays the lower honour, the jack, which forces declarer's ace. From the play of the jack and the ace West assumes that East holds the queen. Another bridge axiom which may often be disregarded is "always return your partner's lead." Whether or not to return partner's lead depends on what partner has led, on the cards in dummy and on the cards held by the leader's partner. When third hand considers the admonition not to set up a trick in dummy he will generally have little difficulty in deciding whether or not to return his partner's lead.

On West's lead of the diamond deuce against a no-trump or a trump contract East takes the trick with the ace, and he does not return the suit, because he would thereby set up an extra trick in the dummy's hand. On the other hand, if the dummy held three worthless cards, East would return the suit, provided, of course, that he lacked a better lead.

This illustrates a situation in which East overtakes his partner's king with the ace for the purpose of showing his partner a certain holding in his hand. When West leads the spade king East, holding a tenace over the dummy in the heart suit, overtakes the king and returns the heart king to show West his holding in that suit. East next leads a spade to put West back in the lead. West takes the trick with the jack and leads a low heart. East now takes two additional heart tricks. Leads up to Weakness Leads up to weakness by third hand were discussed in a previous article. Here is an example of the timinc principle in this connection:—

Against South's five-club contract West leads the heart king. Holding so many cards in the same suit East assumes declarer may liold a singleton heart and he therefore takes the trick with the ace. The possibilities of a heart return are negligible; if .West can take any tricks in spades he will take them without any help from his partner. The only remaining possibility of defeating the contract is that partner can take some outside trick and East can set up a diamond trick. He therefore leads the diamond king, dummy's weakest suit. In this way a diamond trick is 66t up before the trump ace is driven out and declarer's losing diamond ploughed on dummy's fourth sp&d*.