ACES ON BRIDGE

“Man is a creature who lives not upon bread alone, but upon catchwords.”

— Robert Louis Stevenson

Declarer made a critical error in the play here and failed to bring home his game. See if you can spot his mistake.

When West led the heart queen against four spades, declarer won in hand then cashed the trump ace. Seeing that he needed to set up dummy’s long suit for a discard, South continued with a diamond to the ace and another diamond. West won this and was quick to return a trump to dummy’s jack. Now declarer ruffed a diamond high in hand. Then came a spade to the king and a fourth diamond, again ruffed high. That established dummy’s fifth diamond, but there was no access to it.

Declarer was lucky to have escaped a trump lead, since just one round of trumps would have disrupted his entries to dummy. Say he cashes the spade ace, then ducks a diamond; West will lead a second trump and remove a dummy entry prematurely. Declarer can win on the board and ruff a diamond. But when that suit breaks 4-2, the last entry to dummy is the third trump, and again declarer cannot access the fifth diamond.

At the table, having won the heart lead, declarer should lead a diamond at trick two, ducking in dummy. Now the defenders cannot harm him — a trump return is ineffective, as declarer has the extra entry to dummy. He wins in hand, plays the diamond ace and another diamond, ruffing high, then a trump to the jack to ruff a fourth diamond high. He then plays a low trump to dummy’s king, and the long diamond is the 10th winner.

ANSWER: Pass. It is time to get off the bus. Even though your partner has shown a good hand, there is no reason to assume that your side has enough for game, and your kings are unlikely to be of much use since they are facing partner’s short suits. If game were makeable, it is likely partner would have jumped to four hearts.