ACES ON BRIDGE

“We have done all this before; we’re bored and terrified.” — John Malcom Brinnin

This week's deals all revolve around avoidance play, losing the lead to the safe hand. The danger hand must be kept from getting on play to make a lethal switch through a vulnerable tenace, to cash winners, or perhaps to lead a trump.

In today's deal, North is too strong to open a strong no-trump, so he starts with one diamond. Thus, it is South who declares three notrump.

East overtakes his partner's lead of the spade 10 when declarer ducks in dummy (a necessary precaution by the East if the is a singleton), and South puts up his spade ace to the second round to cut the defensive communications. South now needs to set up diamonds while keeping East off lead. Let us look at the options.

If declarer leads the king, ace, and a third diamond (after all, West is likely to be the hand long in diamonds once it is known that East started with six spades), East will win the third diamond and take his spades. South can do better after leading the diamond king and a second diamond. When West plays the queen, declarer must let him hold the trick! Very nice, but what if West drops the diamond queen under the king? Now East has the diamond entry, and there is nothing declarer can do. Back to the drawing board.

The best line is to cross to dummy with the club ace and lead a diamond toward the nine. Declarer can win the heart return with the ace, unblock diamonds and then cross to the club king to run the diamonds. Contract made — and this way, there is nothing the defense can do.

ANSWER: Lead the club six. It is often a bad idea to lead from a broken three-card holding, but the jump to game, coupled with the seemingly favorable breaks in the opponents' long suits, suggest you should defend actively to set up tricks. Your partner, who must have values to give you a chance to set the game, is far more likely to have stayed out of the auction with club length than with spades.