ACES ON BRIDGE

“The child is father of the man; And I could wish my days to be Bound each to each by natural piety.” — William Wordsworth Watch Jeff Meckstroth in action while still an inexperienced junior. Against one no-trump, Billy Rosen led the diamond two; Meckstroth ran this to his 10 as Milt Rosenberg played small. Then he followed up with the diamond three, and when Rosen split his honors, Meckstroth ducked this to East’s bare ace. This left Meckstroth with a diamond tenace in dummy but no entry to it. The play now went very fast: East returned a low club, which Meckstroth won in hand to lead the spade jack to West’s king. Declarer ducked the next club, won the next, and ducked another spade to East, who cashed the master club: West and South threw hearts, and dummy pitched a diamond. East now led a heart to Meckstroth’s ace. Meckstroth crossed to dummy with a spade, and now West was squeezed. He had to discard a heart, or dummy could cash two diamonds, so he was forced to reduce to the bare heart queen. Now Meckstroth led a heart from the table. Rosenberg could duck — in which case West would win and surrender the last two diamond tricks to dummy — or he could take his king and concede the last two tricks to declarer with the heart six and spade ace. Purists would probably refer to this as a “vise squeeze” or “winkle squeeze.” However, as Meckstroth said in recounting the deal, all he could remember was the pleasure of hearing his world champion opponent say he could not believe how fast Jeff had found the winning line. ANSWER: Your partner has shown about eight playing tricks in spades; how much is your hand worth now? It’s hard to tell if the diamond king will be pulling its weight, but you are offering partner a heart ruff and trump support. So I would bid three spades and transfer the final decision to partner.