ACES ON BRIDGE

“The riddles of God are more satisfying than the solutions of man.”

— G.K. Chesterton

Today’s deal comes from the second round of the 2017 Vanderbilt Knockout Teams in Kansas City, Missouri, in which Johan Sylvan and Frederic Wrang faced Tor Helness and Geir Helgemo of Pierre Zimmermann’s squad.

Helgemo stretched to introduce his diamonds at his first turn to speak, making the overbid because he knew the opponents were about to up the ante in spades. A moment later, he found himself in five diamonds, against which West led the spade king, ruffed. Take a look at all four hands, and you will see that the defenders appear to have two diamond tricks and two club tricks. What could go wrong for them?

Declarer crossed to the heart queen, ruffed dummy’s remaining spade and cashed the heart aceking. When both defenders followed, declarer played dummy’s diamond queen to East’s ace.

At this point, East was down to all black cards, so he exited with a spade — as good as anything. Helgemo ruffed in dummy and carefully cashed the ace and king of clubs before playing another trump. West was endplayed whether he ruffed in on the club king or not. When he won his diamond king, he had to concede a second ruff-sluff, and declarer ruffed in dummy again, pitching his last club loser.

This pretty line would only fail under one circumstance: If East had started with four hearts (giving West a 5=4=2=2 pattern), East could defeat the contract by playing the last heart when in with the trump ace, as West would then have been able to ruff with the diamond king and exit in clubs.

ANSWER: Everyone has their own set of rules to live by, in life as in bridge. One of my personal principles is that when opening a hand 4-4 in the minors, I bid the suit I want partner to lead. I don’t care which suit I bid when I have equal suits, but I feel very strongly that if defending here, I want partner to lead clubs, not diamonds. Does your partner always lead the right thing ? If not, help him out!