aceS on bridge

“I speak Spanish to God, Italian to women, French to men and German to my horse.”

— Charles V

The European Open Championships at Montecatini Terme, Italy, in June last year featured a week of mixed pairs and teams events. Because it is an open tournament, players come from all around the world, and squads or partnerships can consist of mixed nationalities.

David Berkowitz of the U.S. was playing with his wife, Lisa, and teammates Jan and Aida Jansma from the Netherlands, and David was full of praise for his teammates’ effort on defense here.

Both rooms played four hearts, and both defenders in the West seat led their singleton club, but Lisa Berkowitz brought home 10 tricks easily enough in the closed room. Here is what happened at our featured table, though.

Declarer won the club lead in hand, took diamond ace and then ruffed a diamond, East giving count in the process.

Declarer next led the heart queen, and Aida ducked this to Jan, who put the spade king on the table! Declarer was forced to try to cash two spades immediately to pitch his club loser. Next, he led a third spade from dummy, and East took the opportunity to ruff high as declarer discarded a club. But that let East give her partner the club ruff to set the hand.

Note that if East covers the first trump, this defense will not work. Similarly, if West shifts to a diamond or a low spade when in with the heart ace, declarer can win in hand and lead a second trump, preventing the defenders from taking their trumps separately.

ANSWER: I don’t think there is any reason to do anything unusual. If the opponents had not bid, you would have introduced clubs rather than rebid hearts, and there should be even less reason now to do anything else. Bidding clubs shows nine of your 13 cards, whereas repeating hearts would show six of them.