ACES ON BRIDGE

“Progress, therefore, is not an accident, but a necessity ... It is part of nature.”

— Herbert Spencer

In today’s deal from Frank Stewart’s latest book, “Keys to Winning Bridge,” I’m going to show you what might happen at the table before discussing what should happen.

When West leads the diamond three against six hearts, it goes to the four, jack and king.

Declarer will take the heart ace and queen and run the spade queen from dummy to West’s ace. Back comes a second top diamond, and declarer wins in hand, ruffs a diamond, and should now take the ruffing finesse in spades rather than relying on the club finesse. If West has managed to keep his fingers off a top spade lead from the ace-king at trick one, he deserves to beat you. But the key to the deal is that East should cover the spade queen at trick four. If South has the spade ace, the contract is surely unbeatable. After all, East can count six trump tricks for South, the club ace, diamond ace-king and at least one diamond ruff in dummy. (Since West led the diamond three, he can have no more than five diamonds, leaving South with at least three.) In fact, declarer should be cold for 13 tricks no matter what you do. When East’s spade king wins, he will exit passively in diamonds, and whether declarer plays on spades or clubs, the defenders will surely score another trick. Note also that declarer’s chances of obtaining a defensive error are much higher if he makes his first play in spades from dummy and not from hand.

ANSWER: There is some ambiguity about what is a cue-bid and what is natural here. (If your RHO had bid a major, then your call in that suit would be played by many as natural.) But cue-bidding two clubs is safe enough; this must be artificial and should get partner to pick a major. You can then raise and show an invitational hand.