ACES ON BRIDGE

“There is suffering in life, and there are defeats. No one can avoid them. But it’s better to lose some of the battles in the struggles for your dreams than to be defeated without ever knowing what you’re fighting for.”

— Paolo Coelho

Today’s deal is from one of my more prolific correspondents, Tim Bourke of Australia. His partner had played a prosaic three diamonds here, down one. But in the other room, his North teammate found a balancing action, leaving South to declare four spades.

The diamond four was led to the nine and ace. Declarer tried a spade to the jack, queen and king. Back came the heart three, a clear singleton. Put yourself in declarer’s position and take it from there.

You must win the heart ace, draw the rest of the trumps, eliminate the clubs by taking the finesse, and then lead a diamond. East can do nothing but take two diamond winners, and South discards a heart on the third diamond rather than ruffing in. The next diamond concedes a ruffand-discard as well as the contract, since declarer can discard his last heart loser.

Is that all there is to the deal? Not exactly! Let’s say East wins the spade king and, instead of leading a heart, plays the diamond king followed by the diamond queen. South ruffs the third diamond high, draws trumps and leads the club jack.

Assuming West covers, then declarer takes the club ace, cashes the queen and plays his last trump. West comes down to three hearts and one club, and declarer crosses to hand in clubs and leads a low heart toward the jack. Now West gets just one heart trick.

However, if in this variation West ducks the club jack, the entries to achieve this position are no longer in place.

ANSWER: There is no right answer here, and your action may depend on the vulnerability, but my preference would be to go high rather than low. If non-vulnerable, I might throw caution to the wind and open three or even four hearts. Vulnerable, a call of two hearts seems sufficient.