Aces On Bridge

“If you quit on the process, you are quitting on the result.”

-- Idowu Koyenikan

In today’s deal, you are East, defending five clubs. You might disagree with North’s third call. Looking for a spade fit was somewhat optimistic; he should have closed his eyes and bid three no-trump, hoping to protect his hearts and expecting to be able to run one or both minors without letting West on lead. Be that as it may, you have to defend against five clubs on partner’s incisive heart lead. Dummy plays the jack, and you are in the hot seat.

The size of the spot-card led tells you that your partner has five hearts at most, so declarer’s shape can be precisely deduced as 0-2-5-6. You must therefore cash your two heart winners before the rats get at them. What next?

You may feel like you are wellplaced to score one or both of your minor-suit kings. But imagine you exit with a diamond. Declarer finesses, ruffs out the diamonds, then finesses in clubs, and it is game over. The same applies on the exit of a low or high spade, while a small club allows declarer to make the same plays in a different order.

It may seem artificial, but there is one perfectly logical defense to set the game 100 percent of the time, assuming your inferences about declarer’s hand-pattern are correct. Simply exit with the club king. Declarer must win in hand and can only reach dummy with a trump. Now he must lose a diamond, since you have killed his opportunity to ruff a diamond on the board.

ANSWER: There are various strong calls you might make now. One is to redouble, one to bid one no-trump, suggesting 18-19 or so. But partner passed your opening bid; are you really obliged to punish him when he has a Yarborough? I would pass for the time being, maybe planning to re-open if the opponents stop in two clubs, and otherwise to give up.