ACES ON BRIDGE

“The real hero is always a hero by mistake; he dreams of being an honest coward like everybody else. If it had been possible, he would have settled the matter otherwise, and without bloodshed.”

— Umberto Eco

On this board from the NABC Life Master Pairs in Toronto last summer, Glenn Eisenstein was able to bring about a very attractive ending in his contract of three spades.

Having received the club queen lead, Eisenstein made the natural play of winning the ace rather than putting up the king (since he was planning to develop clubs against a normal trump break). As the cards lay, that made the later play more complex, though.

He led a trump to the ace, getting the bad news, then played a heart to East’s king. Back came a diamond to the king and ace, followed by a top club to dummy’s king, ruffed by East, who exited with a diamond. Eisenstein won the diamond queen and played the heart queen from hand to East’s ace, observing the fall of West’s 10. That was his fourth loser, but he could ruff the third round of diamonds in dummy and reach a fivecard ending with four trumps and a losing club in hand, while dummy had the 9-8 of hearts, two losing clubs and the spade king.

Eisenstein now ruffed a heart, under which the jack fell, crossed to the spade king, cashed the heart nine to discard his club loser, then led a club to score both his remaining trumps in hand, no matter what East did, to bring home nine tricks.

This is a genuine trump coup, in which declarer can effectively take a trump finesse despite one hand (in this case, dummy) being out of trumps altogether.

ANSWER: I am normally an aggressive overcaller, especially when bidding spades over a minor. Here, though, when facing a passed hand with a weak suit and a hand so playable in suits other than spades, I would tend to pass first and plan to back in if the opponents limit themselves or find a fit. Give me a top honor in spades instead of hearts, and I would feel differently.