ACES ON BRIDGE

“Civilization advances by extending the number of important operations which we can perform without thinking about them.”

— Alfred North Whitehead

When this deal came up at a pairs event, West showed the majors over one no-trump, leaving North with a problem as to how to compete. He decided to show his clubs with a call of two no-trump, the Lebensohl convention, planning to let his partner play a club part-score.

However, after the opponents bid confidently to game, he elected to disclose both minors, letting South play five clubs. Clearly, East-West would be able to take 10 (but not 11) tricks in hearts on best defense, but how do you like South’s chances in five clubs? At the table, West led a top heart, and dummy ruffed.

Declarer saw that he could afford to lose one spade, but not two. The plan, therefore, was to establish the diamonds by keeping East off lead.

Playing smoothly but without undue haste, South led a trump to the ace and the club jack to the king, then let the diamond eight run to West’s jack. He ruffed the heart return, unblocked his diamonds and trumped a third heart to dummy to discard two of his spades on the diamonds, making five.

At the end of the deal, West asked his partner if he planned to live and die by the old saw “Second hand plays low.” East asked what he meant by that, and West pointed out that East had needed to cover the diamond eight with the 10. When declarer played his king, West would unblock the jack, and now East’s Q-7 of diamonds would be a sure entry to let him get in to play spades through declarer’s gizzard.