aces on bridge

“Is there no respect of place, persons, nor time in you?”

— William Shakespeare

Today’s deal has a relatively simple theme, but the answer is one that might surprise some of my readers. North may have done too much here, to reach slam. While he does have all four aces, he should have taken second- and third-round controls into account as well, and in this case, he has no idea where any spade losers may be discarded.

When the spade king is led to the ace, declarer has to find a way to take care of his spade losers, not to mention the club queen. Which defender should you play for the missing club honor?

After winning the heart ace, king and jack, declarer has to imagine a situation where he can achieve an endplay after extracting the clubs. For that situation to arise, declarer will need to find East having begun with a singleton spade. Given East’s known singleton heart, South must hope that East originally had a 1-1-7-4 shape. So, after cashing the club ace, declarer leads out the club jack, covered by the queen and king.

Then after leading the diamond three to dummy’s ace, declarer cashes two more club tricks with the aid of the marked finesse. At this point, he can lead the diamond queen from hand, throwing a spade from dummy. When East takes the trick, he has only diamonds left to lead, and dummy’s other spade disappears when declarer ruffs the diamond return in hand.

Notice that it is key to lead the club jack from dummy and not to lead low to the 10 on the second round of that suit. ANSWER: You do not have enough to drive to game here, so the question is whether you need to do more than bid two hearts. Since you would expect partner to find another call with, for example, the heart queen and a black major honor, a bid of two hearts looks sufficient.