aces on bridge

“Paranoia is infectious. It’s also an incredibly useful tool. If you can make people afraid enough, uncertain enough, they will simply stop moving.”

— C.L. Anderson

West leads the trump seven against your club slam. What is the best way to bring home your contract?

If you take six heart tricks, you should find a route to 12 tricks; but if you have only five heart tricks and one spade, you need to take two ruffs in one hand or the other.

The best plan is to win the trump in hand with the ace, then cash the spade ace and ruff a spade. Next, cross back to dummy with a low trump to the 10. When trumps reveal themselves to be 3-2, you can take some measures to protect against hearts being 4-1. Suppose the full deal is something like the one shown in the diagram.

Your next move should be to ruff dummy’s last spade with the trump queen. Then lead the heart king and overtake it with the ace to draw the opponents’ last trump with the king.

All that remains now is to force out the heart queen by leading dummy’s hearts from the top. East can win the heart queen now or later, but you will ruff his return and run the remaining hearts from the top.

You make a spade, two spade ruffs, five hearts and four trumps for a total of 12 tricks.

If trumps turn out to be 4-1, you need West to hold the heart queen with no more than three cards. So when in dummy with the trump 10, draw the outstanding trump with the king and jack, then play on hearts and hope for the best.

ANSWER: An expert colleague of mine, in discussing this sort of situation, asked, “Would you rather rebid two clubs and show nine of your cards, or two diamonds and show six?” When put in those terms, the rebid of two clubs looks clear, and I would still make that call if the clubs were slightly weaker and the diamonds stronger.