ACES ON BRIDGE

“Self-complacency is pleasure accompanied by the idea of oneself as cause.”

— Baruch Spinoza

Against three no-trump, would you have led fourth-highest from your longest and strongest as West? In the 2007 Cavendish tournament, Louk Verhees led the normal diamond queen, and Bruce Rogoff overtook. When this was ducked, Rogoff returned the diamond, and declarer put in the nine on the second round. Verhees won and could see that he needed to shift. What was the right suit to play?

On a low spade shift (even if partner possesses both the jack and nine, so that the shift does not cost), declarer will surely win the spade king and take a club finesse. Eventually, he will have little choice but to drop your heart queen.

Verhees instead switched at trick three to the heart 10! Declarer did not put up the jack; he won in hand and led a spade to the king to take the club finesse.

Verhees won and returned a club, and declarer now went for the endplay. After the spade ace and a third club, he had reduced to a five-card ending.

Declarer cashed the diamond ace and crossed to dummy with a club, East pitching a heart and a spade. Now declarer hoped that East had begun with four spades headed by the queen-jack and four hearts to the queen.

If that were so, a spade would endplay East to lead a heart around to the jack. However, West cashed out for down one and showed declarer the heart queen at trick 13.

Declarer’s line did not take into account that if East had the heart queen, West would have continued the suit when in with the club king.

ANSWER: Partner will most likely be unbalanced with clubs and spades here, in which case you have a double fit. Your black-suit fillers (even the 10s) will come in handy, so you should take a slight gamble and bid four spades. On this auction, the lighter partner is, the more clubs he tends to have and the better your cards are working.