ACES ON BRIDGE

“Injustice is relatively easy to bear; what stings is justice.” -- H.L. Mencken

When I saw this deal, I was reminded of “The Man Who Knew Too Much.” After all, how could anyone go down in three hearts with trumps and diamonds lying so favorably?

It was East who reported the deal, remarking that perhaps he should have pre-balanced with two spades at his second turn -- but as he commented, if his partner couldn’t balance, maybe his side would do better to remain silent.

In three hearts, declarer, a very skillful player, won the spade lead in his hand and led a low heart up. West, Chris Compton, ducked smoothly, a task not many defenders would have been up to. It seemed twice as likely to declarer that West had been dealt a doubleton jack or 10 in hearts than that he had started with the doubleton king. So South cannot be blamed too much for inserting the heart seven on the first round. Later, he crossed to dummy to lead the heart queen in an attempt to pin West’s remaining honor. This maneuver is known as an intrafinesse, but today all it succeeded in doing was losing an extra trick to the now-bare heart king.

Accordingly, the defenders collected two hearts, two diamonds and one club for down one.

It occurred to me that a weaker player would never have seen the possibility of the intra-finesse and would simply have led a heart to the queen at some point. It was lucky for East-West that they were playing the deal against an expert.

ANSWER: Even if you have shown constructive values (when playing forcing no-trump, so that the raise shows 7 to 10), you have a decent hand, without too much in partner’s suit. Thus, your hand is suitable for defending, and you would be delighted if you could persuade partner to double the opponents. Redouble to show a maximum, and then let partner decide what to do later if they run to a black suit.