The top bridge tip of all time

Meta Goodman, a longtime friend who lives in Brisbane, Australia, once advised me to find snappy titles for my classes. Recently, I thought that “The Top Tip of All Time” is surely the snappiest there is. This week and next, we are studying the main reason why experts play better than everyone else — they keep careful track of the high-card points.

How would doing that help South in this deal? He is in four spades after the given auction. West starts the defense with his two high diamonds, then shifts to a club. How should South continue?

North's four-spade raise satisfies the Law of Total Tricks — in a competitive auction, bid as high as the number of cards in your best fit. Still, without a singleton or void, it was a tad debatable. However, if he had settled for a pre-emptive three spades over West's takeout double, South would have gone on to game anyway. As Caesar might have said, all roads lead to four spades.

South wins the club shift in his hand, plays a spade to dummy's king (if anyone is void, it rates to be West because of his takeout double) and returns a spade to his ace, dropping West's queen. Then declarer cashes his club winners, ending on the board. Finally, South leads dummy's heart jack. After East plays low smoothly, should declarer go low or high from his hand?

Count the points. West has produced 9 — the diamond aceking and spade queen. If he also held the heart ace, he would have had 13 points and opened the bidding as dealer. So, South knows to put up his heart king.