ACES ON BRIDGE

“The cause is hidden, but the result is well known.” — Ovid

It is common practice to preempt liberally in third chair, so East opens a weak two spades. South overcalls three clubs, prompting North to compete to four clubs over three spades.

When West leads a spade to his partner’s ace. East exits passively with the spade 10.

After ruffing in dummy, declarer immediately plays a heart to the queen. His goal is to eliminate the major suits and then duck a diamond to West, endplaying him to allow a ruff-and-sluff or lead back around to the diamond queen. West must be favored to hold the diamond king after East’s preempt.

West pounces on the first heart and should now press on with a third spade.

It might seem pointless to force the dummy, but it should be clear that the focus is on the diamond suit. West does not want to be forced to broach diamonds, so he should try to prevent declarer from eliminating the heart suit.

Declarer ruffs, draws trumps and unblocks the heart king, but he does not have a quick route back to dummy to ruff the third heart without expending dummy’s final trump.

However, if he reads the position perfectly, he can succeed by leading the diamond queen next, covered by the king and ace. East now has a choice of losing options: Play low and be endplayed with the diamond 10 later, after declarer ruffs a heart, or unblock and let declarer cross to hand to lead a diamond to the nine. If East has given count in hearts, might declarer find this line? Kudos to him if he does.

ANSWER: You have the shape for a takeout double, but one no-trump is much more descriptive. Despite your strong five-carder, you have a minimum for this action, with no intermediates, an unsupported queen and duplication in hearts. Still, you do have quick tricks, and this call often slows the opponents down when it is their hand for a part-score.