Aces On bridge

“Now for good luck, cast an old shoe after me.”

— John Heywood

When West leads the spade king against four hearts, South can see the danger of losing two spades and two clubs. There are only nine top winners, but diamonds offer an additional source of tricks.

South wins the spade ace at trick one and draws trumps, pitching spades from dummy.

Then he leads his diamond queen to dummy’s ace and returns the diamond jack for a ruffing finesse. Beware!

If South trumps in when East plays the king, West may be able to get in and run spades, since declarer will be out of trumps. Instead, South pitches a spade and will now make it home if either spades are 6-1 or East has the club ace.

If West had held the diamond king, South would have run the diamond jack, pitching a spade, and would have lost the trick to him. However, the contract would still have had play at that point. West could have taken the diamond king but would retain only one additional spade to cash. Declarer would still come home when the club ace was offside, since East could not prevent him from reaching dummy eventually to cash out the diamonds.

As the cards lie, the diamond king is in a favorable position, and when East is allowed to win the trick with that card, he can play a spade. West can take one trick there, but declarer will eventually force an entry in clubs to dummy’s winners.

Note: Had declarer taken a straightforward losing diamond finesse, he would go down when the club ace was onside, or when spades were 5-2.

West would have an entry to cash out enough spade winners to set the game.

ANSWER: With a choice of suits to lead on a blind auction, it’s common to lead from a five-card holding or from a sequence of honors. When you don’t have that choice and are confronted by two fourcard majors, try not to give up a trick if you can. That makes a spade lead far more attractive than a heart; I’d lead the seven, not the three (second from four small, top from three small), but either card is acceptable.