aces on bridge

“All true believers shall break their eggs at the convenient end: and which is the convenient end, seems, to my humble opinion, to be left to every man’s conscience.”

— Jonathan Swift

Today’s deal comes from “The Language of Bridge” by Kit Woolsey. The author framed it as a defensive problem: I’m going to give you a slightly different take on the deal by asking you just to look at the East cards, not the West cards, as Woolsey posed.

After an abortive Stayman sequence, your partner leads a fourth-highest spade four. You win the spade jack as declarer plays the spade six. Under your spade queen, declarer plays the spade eight, partner the seven. What should you do, and why?

Clearly declarer started with precisely A-8-6 of spades, since he denied a four-card major. If your partner had started with ace-kingfifth of spades, he would have overtaken the queen and cashed out the spades.

Also, if he had wanted spades continued, he would have seized control by overtaking the second spade and leading a third spade. When he didn’t do this, he must have wanted to leave you on lead to do something else.

Since we know West began with K-10-7-4-2, he had three small spades to choose from at trick two.

Playing the seven, the middle spade out of these three spots, should call for the middle suit, diamonds.

Your partner must have three decent diamonds and be hoping you can lead the suit, and that you have the 10 or that declarer has only two diamonds.

If you shift to a diamond now, then when you get back on lead with the club king, another diamond play will give the defense five tricks. ANSWER: You have enough to force to game, but it seems premature to drive to four hearts, since you might miss slam or end up playing a 4-3 fit when three notrump is a better game. Start with a two-diamond cue-bid and see if partner produces a heart suit or a diamond stopper.