ACES ON BRIDGE

“But I was one-and-twenty, No use to talk to me.” — A.E. Housman

Loose lips sink ships, they say. When one of the defenders contributes a bid during the auction, declarer will occasionally be gifted valuable information, which he must take care to use intelligently.

While that may be obvious, it can occasionally be equally important to remember when the defenders might have had the opportunity to bid and did not take advantage of that opportunity.

Suppose West did not open the bidding and has already shown 10 points. He is unlikely to hold another queen in his hand, and you can confidently finesse his partner for the card. Today’s deal is a fine example of this theme, where the best play is indicated by a bid that a defender did not make.

When West leads the heart king against your spade game and switches to the club six, how will you play the contract?

You can confidently assume West holds the heart ace-king. Since his is a passed hand, he cannot also hold both the diamond ace and spade queen. So after winning the club switch with the ace, you should cash the spade ace and then finesse the spade jack. If the finesse loses to the spade queen with West, you can be sure that the diamond ace will be onside, and you will still make the contract. The finesse gains when the cards lie as in the diagram shown, because you avoid losing a trump trick. Here, if you play for the drop in trumps, you will go down.

ANSWER:

You have no attractive or even passive lead available, so you have to listen to the auction and trust your opponents. Declarer appeared to need help from dummy in clubs, and dummy did not provide it. That suggests to me that a club lead is more likely to strike gold in partner’s hand than a heart.