ACES ON BRIDGE

“Walk a single path, becoming neither cocky with victory nor broken with defeat, without forgetting caution when all is quiet or becoming frightened when danger threatens.”

— Jigoro Kano

This week's deals all focus on slam bidding, specifically continuations after Roman Key-card Blackwood.

After North sets spades as trump, South shows short clubs. North cuebids his club control, and South asks for key-cards. When North shows three, South jumps to six diamonds, specifically asking for a third-round control there. North is expected to bid a grand slam with the diamond queen or a doubleton, when declarer can hopefully ruff the suit good. If North had an unsuitable diamond holding but some useful cards in the other suits, he could continue with six hearts, a last-ditch try for a grand slam.

In seven spadea, South can draw trumps and claim if the trumps break reasonably. Declarer must turn his mind to the trickier 4-0 trump split, where he can pick up only four cards on his left.

The standard safety play is to cash the spade queen first in case East shows out.

However, if West has four spades, declarer will not realistically be able to ruff a diamond in dummy. He should ruff two clubs in hand instead, playing to reverse the dummy, and must begin the execution at trick two. He ruffs a low club in hand to mimimize the risk of an overruff. Only then does he cash the spade queen, followed by a spade to the 10 and ace. After a second club ruff, he unblocks the top hearts before finessing the spade nine. He can then draw the last trump with the spade king.

South can finally cash the rounded-suit winners and lead to the top diamonds in hand.

ANSWER: It should be best to lay down a top club and plan the defense from there. A case could be made for a trump lead, but that is unlikely to do much good if they have a big fit, since you cannot lead a second trump. I'd lead the club king, concealing the queen for the time being.