The endplay

Commented deal

Four-player Tarot. You are declarer (Garde), on lead, with four cards left at the end :

C
K-10-2

Your original hand contained 10 trumps, along with 4 spades and 4 diamonds. You played several rounds of trumps (heaven knows why !), while the defense quickly identified your voids and kept leading into them, leaving you now completely out of trumps.

Your contract is in danger : your C is not yet established, and you still need 9 points to reach 41. The defender sitting before you guards the spades (holding Q-10). Do you see a way to bring this home in style, or are you resigned to going down gracefully by cashing the K ?

Before answering, here is the information available at the table when this deal was played :

There are no trumps left in play.
You have 32 points with 2 oudlers, so you need 9 more points to make your contract.
Only the player in front of you still has spades. Early in the game, when this player gained the lead, he led a . You ducked (played low) and saw the cavalier on your right and a low card from the player in front (played without hesitation).
The jack of was discarded later by the player on your right. Among the diamond honors, only the queen remains unaccounted for.
Aside from and , only four cards remain in play.

In fact, we have only three realistic lines of play with these cards. Let’s examine them :

Cash the king of . This is tempting for two reasons. First, we might hope to catch a singleton queen. But that is unlikely, since the two players behind us had an opportunity to save it on the first lead. As for the defender sitting in front, it is improbable that he led from Q-x, one of the least attractive holding to lead from.

Second, we might fear that if we do not cash the king now, we may never score it. This nightmare could occur if we lead a small , since that is the only card that might allow the defense to hand the lead to the player who can “lock” us by leading into our void suits.

In short, cashing the K does nothing but limit the damage. To reach 41 points, we need to win two tricks with these cards, and we are unlikely to drop a singleton queen under the king. Line of play eliminated !
Lead the 10 or a small . We have already seen how dangerous the lead of a small diamond can be. As for the 10, it is the only card that might generate the extra trick we need. But the idea of losing it to a possible (though unlikely) singleton queen is deeply unpleasant. A line that loses 100% of the time. Eliminated !
Lead the C. This play immediately concedes two spade tricks to WEST, but it preserves our K-10 tenace in . WEST wins our cavalier with the queen, cashes the 10 of spades, then exits with a small . We take the finesse with the 10… and it holds! A happy ending on the last trick when our king finally finds his lady — who, we must admit, did everything she could to avoid this arranged marriage.

Plausible scenario ? Time to take another look at the information we have.

The player on the right clearly does not hold the queen of , since he chose to save first the cavalier and later the jack. It is hard to imagine why he would duck the cavalier on the first lead while holding Q-C-J — unless he is a prankster or simply not paying attention.

As for the player in front, we remember that he followed with a small very quickly on the first lead. This is not absolute proof, but an average player would at least hesitate, wondering whether to hold onto the queen or “dive,” at the risk of setting up declarer’s cards. This tempo suggests that WEST is the prime suspect for holding the Q.

That is why we choose to lead the C: to hand WEST the lead and force him to play a diamond under his queen into our K-10 tenace.

In any case, we are in a classic position of restricted choice and inference. We picture the only layout that allows the contract to succeed, and we play accordingly — call it optimistic reasoning, if you like.

You may have noticed that WEST does have a partial defense against this plan. He could duck the C, letting us win the trick in order to preserve his Q. With the actual cards, this is technically his best play (provided his partners do not discard points on the trick), even though it still does not defeat the contract.

If we win the trick with the C (4 points) and later score the K (6 points), that totals 10 points. By contrast, if WEST takes the cavalier of spades, he must concede the last two diamond tricks : the 10 (2 points) and the K-Q trick (9 points), for a total of 11 points. Ducking therefore saves a point.

Of course, it is not easy in practice for WEST to let the C win. He has to wonder why declarer would risk such a play, potentially getting locked in hand and never scoring the K.

*Distribution*
	NORTH
	- - - 6-5-1 Q
WEST		EAST
- Q-10 - Q-4 -		- - C-5-2 9 -
	SOUTH
	- C - K-10-3 -

Score, depending on which card is played:

King of = down 3
10 of = down 3
3 of = down 9 (if WEST has the nerves to duck to EAST)
Cavalier of = made by 2 if WEST wins the trick, made by 1 if WEST ducks

Key Takeaway

Giving the lead to force the opponent to make a favorable lead is a coup called 'endplay' and we set it up by imagining the only configuration of cards that could win the contract, and we played accordingly. This exercise of imagination is called 'wishful thinking' or 'optimistic reasoning'.

Key Takeaway

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