Despite dealer East's 3 preempt, the Gaymsters found their 4 game — so much for the easy part.

When Lady Luck sides with the enemy, a good declarer has to pull out all the stops and put on the old thinking cap, not unlike Tom Terrific. So it was with this hand, picked up by two Gaymsters at the V.V.B.C., Saturday morning, 3-23-2002.

Against a normal trump distribution (in other words, a 3-2 break), South rates to lose a spade, a diamond, and a club - a yawner to make at least four, right? Most Souths cringed upon finding the 5-0 division, but not your intrepid Gaymsters.

South, as usual, started with the Five Phases. 1) South is the Master hand. 2) We seem to have four obvious losers - a spade, a diamond, and two clubs. 3) We think we can afford to lose to the long J, the second club (the third being discarded early on a high diamond), and the A that gets us there.
4) After East's preempt, the opening lead of the K can only be a singleton. 5) Transportation seems not to be a problem as long as trumps behave.

Rather than explain the reasoning behind the backup plan this early in the proceedings, let's see the ultimate line of play and explain along the way.

This is one of the tougher plays bridge has to offer declarers.

The Play

Click on the navigation buttons to step through the hand trick by trick. You can also click on "Click" to jump to a particular trick.

Click 1. You win the opening lead.
Click 2. You try to sneak the diamond through, but your 10 gives away the show and the A is off side anyway.
Click 3. East cashes out your club loser. You've lost two tricks already and the hand is still young.
Click 4. East continues the ugly clubs and West tries to promote her trumps by forcing you in dummy.
Click 5. You cash the king of trumps and get the bad news.

It is at this point that you must pause and try to envision West's hand for your backup play. You cannot simply cash the A of trumps since she will be over you with two trumps which are better than yours. You need to envision the only sequence of events that will deprive her of two trump winners: she has to lead them to you, not the other way around. This can happen only when two trumps are the only cards left in her hand, otherwise she will simply use an "out" card to give you back
the lead.*¹

Okay, she has five non-trump cards, but what are they? Let's play detective.

If she has four spades and one diamond, it's against the odds that you be able to extract all four spades from her hand without losing a spade trick. If she has fewer than three spades, then she started with five or more diamonds, in which case East couldn't have had more than two diamonds to begin with. So you diagnose West's diamond holding by finding out about East's.

Click 6. On the the K both opponents follow and we are able to discard the fourth spade, giving up on establishing that suit, but also discarding the spade question mark.
Click 7. We ruff a small diamond in our hand and get the full story. With East having started with three diamonds, we have safely ruffed out all of West's diamonds and we know she can only have three spades left. In addition (and this is key), we have shortened our own trumps to the same length as hers so as not to get stuck back in the lead because of our own length.
Click 8. Cash the Q.
Click 9. a small spade to the board.
Click 10. The final spade. Notice that at this point it would have been fine to win the third spade in either hand.
Click 11. Now for the coup de grâce *¹ (literally), you duck a small heart into the West hand.
Click 12. West leads to you, not the other way around. Making Four. West won only one heart out of her original long collection. She'll probably be up half the night wondering what she could have done differently. *²

Bottom Line

Even after you've have started your planned line of play, it is not necessarily too late to revisit the Five Phases for a backup plan. If you're the kind of player that can do both at the very beginning, you'll be my partner.

*¹This play is called a Trump Coup or Trump End Play. You can read more about it in better Bridge books.

*²Notice that at tricks 3 and 4 West might have discarded spades rather than diamonds. If she does this, you will not be able to get to dummy enough times to ruff out her diamonds. This allows her to retain an "out" card and her entire heart length. But sitting West, would you have the presence of mind to unguard the jack of spades and not discard those seemly worthless diamonds?