ACES ON BRIDGE

“’I am a lone lorn creetur’,’ were Mrs. Gummidge’s words ... ‘and everythink goes contrary with me.’”

— Charles Dickens

Today’s deal sees a contract of four spades that looks easy to defeat, though the fate of the contract swung back and forth before the result was finally reached.

North-South were playing the simple spade raise as mildly constructive, so South felt he had just enough for a game try. In context, North’s club spots looked like they should be useful, so he bid game, reaching a contract that rated to have at least four top losers most of the time. But West was not in on the game; he made his natural lead of the diamond 10. Declarer won in hand and had only to cash his top trumps, take his discard on the diamonds and give up three tricks. What could go wrong?

At trick two, South cashed the spade ace, and East craftily dropped the jack. Declarer delayed his trump guess, taking the three top diamonds, then playing a club to his king.

When it held, he led a spade to the 10. Disaster! East won with his queen, led a low heart to his partner and ruffed the fourth diamond with the nine, then cashed the club ace for down one.

In retrospect, did declarer do anything terrible? Had no spade honor appeared at trick two, cashing the top spades early would have protected declarer against the same hand being short in both spades and diamonds.

Maybe South could have led the fourth diamond to discard the heart loser instead of playing on clubs, but that course would have carried risks of its own.

ANSWER: Facing a passed hand, are you supposed to double a weak two-diamond bid? If West were not a passed hand, I might leave well enough alone and wait for partner to reopen; in fact, in my heart of hearts, I think it is probably right to pass anyway. Certainly, if my diamonds and spades were switched, I would go low. Still, I can’t stand to see my opponents push me around, so I’ll double.