aces on bridge

“An expert is someone who knows more and more about less and less.”

— Anonymous

This deal comes from a pairs event at a national tournament, and it features two experts in a high-level game of chicken. It was Roger Bates and Chris Willenken who crossed swords here — and Bates prevailed in the end.

After a simple auction to three no-trump, Bates received the heart jack lead and immediately passed the diamond eight. Willenken ducked it, thereby doing his best to get his name in the papers. Now if declarer repeats the diamond finesse, he will go down.

But Bates knew his defenders were capable of the ducking play from any holding that included the jack. The opening lead made it relatively unlikely that West had four diamonds to the jack, and who would want to fall victim to such a play? You’d never hear the end of it!

So he rejected the second finesse, playing diamonds from the top and emerging with 10 tricks. Nicely defended, but it was Bates whose name was recorded in the “highly commended” column.

For the record, if East wins the diamond jack at his first turn, it makes it easy for declarer to establish the suit. The defenders can subsequently duck the diamond ace for as long as they like, but dummy still has an entry in the form of the heart ace, which will grant access to the rest of the diamonds. Ducking in a suit where the defenders have two stops (normally the ace-king or ace-queen) is often effective when dummy has just one entry to a long suit.

ANSWER: Had East not bid, you might have produced a constructive heart raise if playing forcing no-trump (where weak raises go through one no-trump). That doesn’t apply in competition; the real choice now is whether to bid two hearts and compete again, or bid two diamonds first, then raise hearts to suggest invitational values. I prefer the latter approach, but if you took away the diamond 10, I’d go the other way.