ACES ON BRIDGE

“Don’t ever become a pessimist ... a pessimist is correct oftener than an optimist, but an optimist has more fun, and neither can stop the march of events.” — Robert Heinlein

Against six spades, a trump lead would work best to disrupt dummy’s late entries, and I suppose you can make a good case for it if you consider how weak partner’s hand is likely to be. But few of us would look too far beyond the heart sequence, so South should plan the play after winning with his heart ace at the first trick. A poor player would pitch his diamond on the heart winner and would end up with two club losers. Meanwhile, an optimist would put all his faith in a diamond break or the convenient fall of a diamond honor. He would cross to dummy to take the diamond finesse and go down. But the expert will rely on the diamonds breaking no worse than 4-2 — in which case, he really doesn’t need any help with the fall of an honor, thanks to dummy’s trump entries. At trick two, he plays the diamond ace, then the queen. As the cards lie, West must win and can do no better than lead a trump. Declarer wins with dummy’s spade six, underplaying it with his own three, then ruffs a diamond with the spade ace. He leads the spade seven to dummy’s eight, ruffs a diamond with the trump king, and can finally lead the spade nine to the 10. The club losers disappear on the heart king and the good diamond. Incidentally, after a trump lead, declarer could technically succeed by winning in dummy and running the club jack, covered all around. Then he takes all his hearts and trumps to catch West in a club-diamond squeeze at the end.