ACES ON BRIDGE
“Nothing is more dangerous to reason than the flights of the imagination, and nothing has been the occasion of more mistakes among philosophers. Men of bright fancies may in this respect be compared to those angels whom the scripture represents as covering their eyes with their wings.”
— David Hume
In our final squeeze hand of the week, declarer Brian Glubok had to work hard to bring about the desired endplay. He needed to endplay West to lead a suit for him, with precious little material to work with, but he could use his trumps to good effect.
Glubok and Fred Chang play the Swedish Two-way Club. South's initial actions were ambiguous, but eventually Glubok showed a strong hand with hearts and a subsidiary club suit.
West led a low trump to the nine, 10 and king. Expecting that the opening lead was based on a club stack, declarer's next move was an imaginative low diamond to the jack and king. Not surprisingly, this was too tough for the defense to read, and East played back the club seven to the 10 and queen. Glubok won a second trump in dummy, then ruffed a spade. Now he cashed two more trumps before laying down the diamond ace.
When declarer continued with a diamond to dummy's queen, West was forced to let go a spade. Glubok then ruffed a spade to hand and exited with the club jack, unblocking the club eight from dummy. In the two-card ending, West had to lead from the club nine-two into the ace-six tenace.
West had been squeezed out of one exit card, letting declarer ruff out the other, to strip off the side suits. By contrast, if declarer had played his last trump before cashing two diamonds, ending in dummy, West could have thrown a club, then the spade king, killing any chance of a throw-in.
ANSWER: Your hand is hard to get off your chest in one turn. One thing is for sure: You have too much for a simple call in either spades or diamonds, and not enough to drive to game. A cue-bid would suggest more high cards than this, so maybe an invitational jump is best. In that case, a call of two spades keeps open the most likely game for your side.