ACES ON BRIDGE

“Awaiting the sensation of a short, sharp shock, From a cheap and chippy chopper on a big black block.”

-- W. S. Gilbert

In today’s deal from the finals of the U.S. trials, Paul Soloway declared three no-trump at one of the critical tables. A diamond was led, and when East won the club ace, he returned a diamond, letting through 10 tricks.

In the other room (on the auction shown), David Berkowitz followed an invitational sequence facing a mini no-trump, and Larry Cohen drove to game. He had eight quick tricks on a diamond lead, but the clubs had to produce a ninth. He correctly won the opening lead and attacked clubs at once. Even if the club ace was on his right, there was always the hope that the defense would not know what to do next. When Eric Rodwell took the club ace, all he knew was that his partner had a singleton club, so he was able to reconstruct that declarer had the club king-jack and diamond queen.

Since the likelihood was that he had a second top diamond, there was no room for declarer to have the heart ace, so his shifting to the heart jack gave the defense two chances. At the table, Cohen ducked the jack, so it was easy for East to continue hearts and cash out the suit. But had the trick gone to the heart queen and ace, Jeff Meckstroth would have returned a high heart from a remaining holding of three small, and a low heart from a remaining holding of 10-x-x.

If a high heart had come back, Rodwell would have reverted to diamonds and hoped for better luck there.

ANSWER: I can offer two approaches here, depending on whether you play two-over-one as game forcing or not. If you do, this hand is a minimum (though some would say sub-minimum) for a jump to three spades, which simply shows a semi-solid or better spade suit. I’d take that action because of the club fit. If two clubs is not forcing to game, simply rebid two spades.