ACES ON BRIDGE

“I’ve been in office and I’ve been out of office. And if I were to choose, I’d rather be in office.”

— Jerry Brown

The English women have been consistently successful over the last decade fielding a partnership while still in their 20s. Fiona Brown is originally from Australia, but has been living in the U.K. for over 10 years. She played with Susan Stockdale first in junior events, then in women’s events.

Here is Stockdale at work. Declaring four spades, she won the heart lead in dummy to play a spade to the ace (not best, but far from silly), and led her diamond. West won and continued diamonds, letting Stockdale finesse the jack, then cashed the spade king to find the bad news. Next came dummy’s diamond king, on which East pitched her heart. (It would have been better to pitch a club, then shift to hearts at her next turn.)

Stockdale discarded a second club on the diamond king and now led a trump. East won the spade queen and played back a top club, which Stockdale ducked. She won the next club, then played the last trump to squeeze West in the red suits for her contract.

For the record, declarer might have cashed the spade king and played a second trump after winning the diamond jack. When East wins and returns a spade, it squeezes West down to one club. Then declarer cashes the club ace, leads the heart seven to the ace, takes the heart queen and leads the heart three to West, forcing a diamond return into dummy’s king-10.

If South forgets to play the heart seven early, West can unblock in hearts to leave South on lead, to concede two club tricks to East.

ANSWER: You may have a deadminimum hand, but you do have suitable shape, and your partner has volunteered a call, so he won’t have a complete bust. Even if you are outgunned on high cards, you may still make a surprising number of tricks, since you have aces, and you may be able to engineer a cross-ruff. So, raise to two spades.