Sarasota Herald-Tribune – 26 Nov 1952 By Oswald Jacoby
Newspaper reports of the National Bridge Tournament, which begins at the end of this week in Miami, will probably show some hand in which declarer gets a fine score by playing for everything that isn’t nailed down. This is an excellent tournament technique, since in tournament play it is often just as important to make an extra trick as it is to make your contract. The difference between tournament play and ordinary rubber bridge play may be illustrated by the hand shown today.
An expert declarer would make four spades at rubber bridge, but he would probably be defeated at tournament bridge. West wins the first two heart tricks and then leads the jack of clubs. Dummy wins the third trick with the queen of clubs and returns a trump. At this moment, the correct play in tournament bridge differs from the correct play in total point bridge.
In a tournament, South would finesse the queen of spades in the hope of winning the rest of the tricks by means of a successful trump finesse. The finesse would lose to the king of spades, and South would have to lose a second trump trick later on, thus going down.
In a total point game, however, South would not jeopardize his contract in order to try for the extra trick. South would be willing to lose one trump trick and would concentrate on guarding against the loss of two trump tricks.
The standard “safety play” is to play the ace of trumps first to avoid losing to a singleton king. This play would drop West’s king of spades, after which South need lose only one trump trick. What happens if the ace of spades fails to drop a singleton king? South then leads a diamond to dummy and returns a second trump towards his remaining honors. Declarer is still sure of his contract unless West started with four trumps—in which case so play could possibly succeed.
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