ACES ON BRIDGE

“We are not interested in the possibilities of defeat; they do not exist.”

— Queen Victoria

As we continue our examination of last year’s European Open in Istanbul, we encounter this delicate no-trump game. Not everyone would open the North cards one heart, suppressing the longer suit; the final contract was perfectly normal, though.

West led the spade queen, promising the king. South, Ahmet Rifat Sahin, took this with the ace as East discouraged with the two, and played the club king, followed by the queen. West captured that with the ace as dummy shed a heart and East a spade, then played a heart to the nine and queen. East then reverted to spades, the nine being covered all around.

Back came a heart from West. Sahin took it with the ace, shedding the spade four from hand, then came to hand with a diamond and cashed the spade 10, pitching a heart.

He now played the club jack, discarding not the heart jack from dummy, but the diamond seven.

The reason was that he was confident he knew West’s original distribution, believing it to be a 4=2=1=5 pattern. Thus, East would be squeezed on this trick between the red suits. Indeed, to avoid giving up the diamonds, East had to bare the heart king, whereupon declarer crossed to the diamond king, West discarding as expected. Finally,

Sahin called for the heart jack, endplaying East.

He could win the trick, but was then forced to lead into dummy’s diamond tenace. Plus 400 brought declarer an 85% score in the open pairs.

ANSWER: Bid four clubs. Your hand has so much playing potential (even king-fifth of spades and nothing else opposite would offer decent play for game) that you cannot afford to make an invitational call. Most pairs would play a direct raise to four spades as balanced, with four clubs being available to show a good hand with four-card support and six solid or semisolid clubs.