The endplay

Deal analysis

Tarot at 4 players. You are declarer (garde), on lead and holding at 4 cards of the end :

C
K-10-2

Your hand was made of 10 trumps with 4 spades and 4 diamonds. You played some rounds of trumps (God knows why !) while the defense found your voids quickly and insisted, so that you are now out of trump. Your contract is in danger because your cavalier of is not established and 9 points are missing to reach 41. It's the defender placed before you who gards your spades (he holds D-10). Do you have any idea to finish beautifully or are you ready to go down with dignity by cashing the K ? Before answering, you can take note of the information available when this deal was played :

There is no more trump in play.
You have 32 points with 2 oudlers, so 9 points are needed to pass the contract.
Only the player in front of you has spade. When this player gained the lead at the beginning of the game, he led a . You ducked (played small) and watched the cavalier on your right and a low card in front (played without hesitation).
The jack of was discarded later by your right-side opponent. Only the queen is still in play from the diamonds honors
There is only four cards other than the and the still on play.

In fact, we only have 3 possible lines of play with our cards. Let's examine them :

Cash the king of . That's playable for 2 reasons: first, to hope to capture a stiff queen (singleton). But this possibility is unlikely since the 2 players behind you had an oppurtunity to save it on the first lead. As for the defender placed before you, it is unlikely that he made a lead under a doubleton queen, which is one of the most unattractive lead.

Second reason: we can be afraid, by not cashing the king of right now, to never be able to cash it later. This disaster is possible with the lead of the small , since it is the only card which can let any player to take the lead (defense could let the lead to the player who will "close" you with 3 cards in your voids).

To summarize, cashing the K is a play that does nothing except to limit the loss. To reach 41 points, we need to make 2 tricks with our cards since we are unlikely to capture a singleton queen with the king. Play eliminated !
Play the 10 or the small . We saw that it was dangerous to play the small . As for the 10, it is the only card that could make the missing trick. The idea to lose this 10 to a possible (although improbable) singleton queen horrifies us deeply. 100% losing play. Eliminated !
Play the C. This play immediately concedes 2 spade tricks to WEST but allows us to preserve our King-10 fork in . WEST takes our Cavalier with the queen, cashes its 10 of spade then plays a small on which we try the finesse with the 10... which holds the trick! Happy end at the last trick when our king finds his lady (we must admit that she did everything to avoid this forced marriage). Plausible scenario? It is time to re-examine the information we have.

The player on the right definitely does not have the queen of , since he saved first the cavalier then the jack. We can't imagine why he would have passed the cavalier on the first lead with with Q-C-J in hand (unless he's a joker or an inattentive). For the the player in front, we remember he played a small very quickly on the first lead. It's not completely reliable, but an average player will wonder whether he must retain his queen or "dive", at the risk to set up some cards in declarer's hand. This information makes us to believe that WEST is the number 1 suspect to hold the Q. This is why we choose the play of the C to give him the lead and to force him to play under its queen of towards our King-10 fork.

Anyway, we are in a classic case of assumption. We imagined the only configuration of cards permitting to win the contract and we will play accordingly (wishfull thinking).

Perhaps you noticed that WEST has a partial defense against the play we imagined. He can indeed decide to let us make the trick with the C in order to save its Q. Such as are the cards, it's the better play he can make (with the condition that the other defenders do not unload points on the trick), even if it does not prevent the contract from being made. The trick of the C (4 points) + the trick of the K (6 points) = 10 points. Whereas by taking the cavalier of spade, WEST must concede the last 2 tricks in diamonds: the trick of the 10 (2 points) + the trick with K-Q (9 points) for a total of 11 points. It thus saves a point. However, it's not easy for this defender to let make this C. He must wonder why his opponent plays like this and risks to be locked without making its 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

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