ACES ON BRIDGE

“Canada is an interesting place; the rest of the world thinks so, even if Canadians don’t.”

— Terence M. Green

When the World Bridge Federation was pushing hard for bridge to be included in the Winter Olympics, they organized a competition in Salt Lake City just before the Olympics started. In the finals of that event, Poland trailed Canada by 17.5 IMPs as they entered the last set of 12 deals. They held Canada scoreless till the last board but still trailed by 1.5 IMPs as the last board hit the table.

Both tables reached four spades by South after West had opened one heart and rebid two diamonds.

The Polish West led a diamond against Keith Balcombe. He finessed, then took a safety play in spades by leading the ace and running the jack, to make 420. If the Polish declarer could come to 11 tricks, the commentators estimated he would lose the match (in the absence of score corrections and appeals) by precisely half an IMP.

However, when Fred Gitelman led the heart ace followed by another heart, declarer Michal Kwiecien won in dummy, cashed the spade ace and noted the fall of the eight. Then he followed up with the spade jack from dummy. Joey Silver naturally played low, and Kwiecien paused for reflection for quite a while.

Eventually, he let the spade jack run. Gitelman won his queen and led a low heart, promoting the spade 10 into a third trick for the defenders. That let Silver collect the club king for down one in due course. Canada had won their first-ever Gold Medal in a teams event.

ANSWER: When your partner cannot bid more than three spades, your side is highly unlikely to have a good slam. Even if partner has a maximum and the club finesse works, you might run into club ruffs. Just raise to four spades and hope partner can make it.