ACES ON BRIDGE

“Let schoolmasters puzzle their brain

With grammar, and nonsense and learning,

Good liquor I stoutly maintain, Gives genius a better discerning.”

— Oliver Goldsmith

The deals this week come from the NEC tournament in Japan last February.

Today’s deal was the penultimate deal of a knockout match, with the Hackett team (the eventual winners of the tournament) trailing by a small margin.

Both tables reached three notrump, and in both rooms a spade was led.

In the first room, West led the spade six (high from three small in a bid suit). South covered with the jack, ducked Alex Hydes’ (East) king, won the spade return and played a diamond to the jack, queen and king.

In again with the third spade, declarer led and passed the diamond nine to the 10, and Hydes quickly cashed two spades for down one.

In the other room, Paul Hackett was declarer. He also played dummy’s jack at trick one, but took the king with the ace to lead a diamond, losing to the queen and king, as in the first room.

When a second spade came back, Hackett ducked. Now the best the defenders could have done was clear the spades, but they actually shifted to hearts to make his life easy.

What would have happened if the defenders had played a third spade? Hackett would have won and led the diamond nine from hand. When West showed out on the second diamond, declarer would have risen with dummy’s ace and turned his attention to clubs instead. The fall of the jack-10 would have meant he would have taken four clubs, a diamond and two tricks in each major.

ANSWER: An easy one this time, I hope. Your partner’s initial silence and subsequent double must be based on a chunky diamond holding. He does not need a great hand to double, since both opponents have limited their hands. I would lead a count-card diamond four, not the nine, which might confuse the count for partner.