aces on bridge

“I must have women — there is nothing unbends the mind like them.”

— John Gay

Over the last four years, an elite annual bridge tournament for women has been organized in Beijing. The Hua Yuan Cup is for eight national women’s teams, and today’s deal comes from the main event.

Poland’s Justyna Zmuda had the opportunity to find a sparkling defense after an unusual sequence.

While the jump in a minor suit opened on your left can be played as natural, typically a jump bid in the suit the opponents have opened asks your partner to bid three no-trump with a guard in that suit. The call is usually based on a long, solid minor suit, plus guards in at least one of the other two suits.

On lead against three no-trump, Zmuda started with the spade ace in order to get a look at dummy. East followed with the spade five, and South with the three. The auction showed that South had started with a spade stopper — probably queen-third or queenfourth.

Zmuda took heed of East’s five and decided that unless East had started with the doubleton 5-4, it was consistent with a suit-preference signal for diamonds, the lower of the red suits. And since she needed less from her partner in diamonds than she did in hearts, she made the killing switch to the diamond jack, though today the diamond king would have worked equally well. (That would not have been the case if partner had held the doubleton A-9 or A-10.)

The defenders could now cash five diamonds and two spades for three down.

ANSWER: If you wanted to drive this hand to game, you could bid three spades now. This is the Smolen convention, showing four spades and five or more hearts, game forcing. This transfers declarership to partner if you end up in hearts. But I think this hand is closer to a signoff in two hearts once it is clear that your side does not have a real fit. So I would bid two hearts, allowing my partner to choose a major at the two-level.