ACES ON BRIDGE

“There will be time to audit The accounts later, there will be sunlight later

And the equation will come out at last.” — Louis MacNeice

After the overcall of two no-trump by West to show the minors, North’s three-spade call suggested the shape and values for a simple spade raise. With a better hand, North could double to show defense, or cue-bid three clubs or three diamonds. One of those bids shows hearts and a good hand, and one a limit raise in spades. That lets a direct three-heart call be non-forcing.

Against four spades, West led the heart two, to the nine and ace. Dummy’s diamond length was very bad news, but declarer did his best by drawing trumps ending in dummy. He now needed to build the diamonds into an extra trick — but he was still in danger of running out of trumps.

So at trick five, South led the club four. The idea was to keep East off lead if humanly possible, so declarer needed him to have only one club honor — or to make a mistake by failing to put up a high card from a holding such as Q-10-x-x.

When East played low on the first club, declarer inserted the nine. West won cheaply and returned a club to the ace. Declarer countered with the diamond queen, hoping to get lucky and find East with a significant singleton — the nine or jack. After winning his diamond king, West could see that a diamond return would be fatal. So he led back a club. Dummy ruffed, while declarer discarded the heart four from hand. Now South ran the diamond eight to West’s jack and claimed the rest. ANSWER: Did you fall into the trap of raising spades or cuebidding in a search for slam? You shouldn’t, because this auction doesn’t really promise spade support — partner would follow this route with a doubleton. You should rebid three no-trump here, expecting your partner to pick whichever game he considers appropriate. In the context of what you have already shown, you are as balanced as you could be.