ACES ON BRIDGE

“Unrestricted by human conscience, both capitalism and socialism are repulsive.”

— Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

West's third-and-fifth lead of the diamond two went to the ace and seven. East could see another trick to come in trumps, so he needed to hope West had one of the black-suit aces.

If West had very good clubs, East would do best to shift to that suit. But even then, declarer would surely hold the spade ace-queen for his opening bid and would be able to dispose of dummy's third club on a spade.

So East went for a forcing defense, to tap dummy. He switched to the spade four, hoping to find his partner with the ace. In fact, West produced the spade jack as well. West's low-spade return was ruffed in dummy, and declarer called for the heart king. East ducked that on general principle, and South paused for thought.

“Why has East chosen to force me in spades?” South asked himself. It could only be because hearts were 4-1. If so, another round of trumps would be fatal: East would win and continue spades.

So declarer sought to neutralize East's heart holding, using the diamonds as trump substitutes. He unblocked diamonds and, remembering West's count-based lead, took two rounds of clubs, ending in dummy, before playing the third and fourth diamond winners, pitching clubs from hand.

East had no answer. If he ruffed the diamond, declarer would overruff and safely play a trump. So East discarded a club, then a spade, but that did not help.

Declarer could now ruff dummy's remaining club in hand, and East gave up the ghost.

ANSWER: The emphasis is on bidding majors after partner makes a takeout double. This is not only to find the cheaper game or compete in the boss suit, but also because partner may not always have length in the unbid minor. Bid one spade for now. You may still be able to compete in diamonds over an opponent's two-club call.