ACES ON BRIDGE

“An unlearned carpenter of my acquaintance once said in my hearing, ‘There is very little difference between one man and another, but what little there is is very important.’”

— William James

In today's deal, the contract and lead were the same at both tables. On the auction shown, the jump to two hearts promised a strong hand and a good suit. After the raise to three hearts, cue-bidding and key-card inquiries followed. When South cue-bid the club king over five no-trump, North was happy to bid the grand slam.

The less-experienced declarer took the lead of the trump nine with dummy's queen and followed up by drawing the rest of the outstanding trumps with his ace and king. Next, he cashed the diamond ace-king. When the suit proved to be 4-1, he had to concede a trick to the defenders.

The older declarer played the first three tricks identically. However, instead of tackling diamonds right away, he played two more rounds of trumps, discarding a diamond from dummy. It was only after cashing the spade ace and the club ace-king that he took the diamond ace-king. If that suit had been three-two, he would have cashed the diamond queen and ruffed a spade back to hand to take the last trick with a diamond.

The key point of the play was that when the bad trump break came to light, declarer switched focus and ruffed a spade to hand. Because East had been forced to keep all his diamonds, that player had been forced to pitch three spades and two clubs on the trumps, and his spade king was now bare. Declarer ruffed away East's king and took the last two tricks with dummy's queens.

ANSWER: You have very little defense against hearts and are confident that your opponents probably have 10 of them. You intend to keep bidding spades and should therefore take the bull by the horns by preempting to the five-level now. You would be unlucky if one or both of your jacks represented defensive tricks.