ACES ON BRIDGE

“The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents.” — H.P. Lovecraft

Some would consider the North hand too strong for a splinter bid, but four clubs describes the hand well. South has enough to use KeyCard Blackwood, and now North can afford to force to slam. To show his void, he bids six clubs, denoting an odd number of key-cards with a club void. Bidding five no-trump instead would show an even number of key-cards. South can rely on his partner for three key-cards rather than one (otherwise, North would not have any high cards at all), so he takes a shot at seven hearts.

West leads a trump to try to cut down on ruffs. Declarer decides to ruff three clubs in dummy and discard his fourth on the diamond ace. The alternative is to ruff out the opponents' spades, but this line seems to involve more risk as West might be poised to overruff.

If playing to ruff clubs, there is one more thing to consider. After winning the trump lead in hand and ruffing a club, declarer should return to hand not with a diamond, but a spade. He plans to use this entry at some point, but he should do so immediately in case the queen is dropping and diamonds are very unfriendly.

This may be a tiny extra chance, but it turns out to be critical on this layout. When the spade queen appears, declarer wins the king, ruffs a club high and then draws trumps. He now has plenty of winners in the pointed suits and can overtake in one suit after unblocking the winners in the other, generating two parking spots for the club losers.

ANSWER: Some would open one no-trump on this with so much strength in the short suits, but you might still miss a heart fit, or even a game, when partner has good support for your suit but not enough to respond to one no-trump. In my book, you should usually treat a 5-42-2 pattern as unbalanced, and it is only when you foresee a rebid problem that you settle for opening one no-trump. Open one heart here.