aces on bridge

“You can never plan the future by the past.”

— Edmund Burke

Against four spades, West leads the diamond four. South can see that he has no losers in the black suits, but he must plan to take care of three losing hearts and two losing diamonds.

A logical plan is to try to trump two of these cards in dummy. An alternative is to set up dummy’s long club suit to provide a home for his losers. Either plan would be sensible, but setting up the long suit may offer the better odds.

South takes East’s diamond jack with his ace, then lays down the spade king. When West discards a high heart, it looks right for South to shift to clubs, hoping the suit breaks 3-2. He leads the club king and plays a second club to the ace. East ruffs in and finds the best defense by leading a heart to the queen and king, then he wins the diamond king to play the spade jack.

Declarer must win this in dummy to continue ruffing out the clubs. But beware! South must simultaneously unblock a high spade from hand under the jack to ensure that dummy’s spade eight remains an entry. So declarer contributes the nine, wins the trump ace and ruffs a club with the 10. Now he can ruff a heart low in dummy, ruff the fourth club with the queen and draw East’s last trump by leading his six to the eight.

For the record, if East had returned a red suit after winning his diamond king, declarer would be able to take the rest by scoring his seven trumps separately. In the two-card ending, East’s spade jack would be caught in a trump coup.

ANSWER: The answer here may be more about style than judgment. I would respond one heart, hoping to find a major-suit fit. I tend to use the one-diamond response as natural but tending to deny a major unless in a game-forcing hand. So in response to one diamond as opener, I would tend to bypass rebidding a major if balanced. Thus, the one-heart response helps us find our side’s fit.