ACES ON BRIDGE

“Self-sacrifice is a thing that should be put down by law. It is so demoralizing to the people for whom one sacrifices oneself. They always go to the bad.”

— Oscar Wilde

As South in today’s auction, should you have bid four notrump over four diamonds? Against five clubs, West leads the spade king, and East shows an even number of spades. You win the ace and cash the trump ace, on which West discards a low spade. How do you plan to take 11 tricks?

West has at least 5-5 in the majors and a trump void, so you should play him for an original distribution of 5=5=3=0 pattern. This leaves East with a likely starting shape of 2=1=6=4.

Your aim is to strip East of his major-suit cards and all but one trump; then you can endplay him with a club to force him to play a diamond. If so, you will make a spade, two hearts, two diamonds and six trumps.

After winning the first trick with the spade ace and drawing a round of trumps, simply advance the spade 10 at trick three. West can do no better than win the trick with the jack and play another high spade. The trap to avoid is ruffing this trick with the two. Instead, you must ruff the third round of spades with the six, draw two more rounds of trumps, cash the high hearts (East will discard a diamond) and then endplay East by leading your two of clubs to his three — assuming East has done his best to unblock in trumps.

East will only have diamonds remaining, so you will make dummy’s two top diamonds along with six trumps and three winners in the majors, for a total of 11 tricks in all.

ANSWER: The simplest path is to raise to two spades, since you have bad trumps and good defense. You might compete to three spades later, depending on how the auction works out. An immediate jump to three spades would be a pre-emptive raise, and this hand is too strong for that. A fit jump to three diamonds, showing a spade fit and a diamond suit you want partner to lead, would be possible if you had a fifth diamond.