One option is to play off all your trumps, then hope something good happens at the end. Perhaps the opponents will have to throw away so many winners they keep the wrong thing. Or they end up clashing their King and Ace on the same trick. Or one defender wins but ends up having to return something to help you. A few ways to win.
The alternative approach is to try and steal the contract early on by sneaking a trick past the defence. Perhaps you can grab a singleton King, or set-up a suit without the defence get organised.
Which of these two approaches you go for I think is partly a question of personality. If you like to leave the washing up to soak, and put off the nasty work, you go for the first approach. Take your 9 winners, then hope something good happens. If you're the sort of person who likes to rip a plaster off quickly, and deal with the problem straight away, you go for the second approach, and try and steal your 10th trick immediately.
Here's an example hand:
You open the South hand 1♠. Your partner makes a slightly dubious 2♠ raise and with your strong hand you raise to game.
West leads a Heart which you win in hand. There are four top losers. One Spade, one Diamond, two Clubs. Claim down one? Not yet.
These are your two options:
- Draw trumps, and if the defence haven't taken their four tricks yet then play off all your trumps and your Hearts. Finally play a Club and hope the defence end up crashing their ♣AK.
- Immediately start on Clubs. If the defence don't get round to playing Diamonds you can discard a losing Diamond on the Clubs in dummy.
The first line is the safest, as it begins by drawing trumps, and is probably the one most declarers will take. At the table declarer chose this (and went one off).
The second line looks like it shouldn't work, but just might do. You know the defence can safely play Diamonds, but they don't. West in particular might be relcutant to lead away from his ♦K. And maybe when East wins his Club honour he'll want to play trumps to cut Heart ruffs (he doesn't know you've got a solid Heart suit), or he might even return Hearts (his partner's suit).
The point is, defence is the hardest part of the game and what's clear to declarer might not always be clear to the defence. So make life as hard as possible for the defence, and they'll get it wrong sometimes.
For this particular hand there is a third option, a bit harder to spot:
- Play four rounds of Hearts, discarding three Clubs from dummy. On the fourth round one opponent will be out of Hearts (even if they split 4-3), but he might have to ruff with the singleton Ace of trumps. You could try and improve your chances by sneaking a round of trumps through first (e.g. leading the ♠J), which increases the chance that later when an opponent ruffs your Heart it's with the Ace.
This gives you a small genuine chance of making it, but risks going down two if the defence ruff a Heart winner then take their other four tricks. So perhaps this is the best line against expert defenders, when you expect them to always take their tricks.
Here's another hand, this time from a Glasgow League Match:
I was East. 4♠ is not a bad contract, but when South found the killing Diamond lead it looks like I've got a certain four losers. I turned to Hearts immediately, before drawing trumps. The logic is that if you're going for the steal-a-trick route, you need to do it as early as possible. Leaving trumps out is fine as there's no risk of a ruff. It also the defence more to think about. Finally drawing trumps would give the defender who runs out first a chance to signal.
In the Heart suit there is the chance of getting a useful discard from dummy, but surely once I touch Hearts it'll be obvious to the defence what's going on. Certianly if I started by leading the King of Hearts then the defence would take their Ace, see the winning ♥QJ in dummy, realise they can only get one Diamond (before dummy ruffs) so turn to Clubs.
I therefore tried leading the ♥9 from hand. This feels awkward, as I've blocked the Heart suit, but that's not actually going to a problem. North took his Ace of Hearts, cashed a Diamond, and went into a think. I could see that there were two Clubs to lose, but he didn't know that. He also didn't know I had the King of Hearts hidden in my hand. The longer he thought, the more my hopes got up. Only a Club will beat me. Finally he played a Diamond, and the contract made.
So here's what I've learned. If you're going for a deceptive play:
- Do it as soon as possible before the defence know what's going on
- Hide the honours in the closed hand
And don't be surprised if some of the time the defenders help you out - it's much harder for them than it is for you.
A final example, from a Glasgow League match in 2020. You are declarer in 5♥. You've overbid, so you better make it:
You get the ♠Q lead. There are three top losers. What's your plan?
Following the rules above (do it quickly and use the closed hand), you cross to dummy to lead a Club towards your singleton Queen. Looking at all four hands it's obvious for North to take the Ace of Clubs (then take two Diamonds for one off), but what if you had a Club void in hand? Then North playing the Ace of Clubs would be a big mistake.
Leading a low Club from the North hand early on makes the defender guess, and at least some of the time they're going to guess wrong.
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