ACES ON BRIDGE

“I never resist temptation because I have found that things that are bad for me do not tempt me.”

— George Bernard Shaw

This deal is part of our weekly overview of a general theme: handling a suit where we are missing the queen and jack. When the auction has marked one defender as more likely than his partner to hold length in a suit, we have safety plays to guard against the bad split.

When West pre-empted with two spades, South doubled, to which his partner responded three clubs to show constructive values. With less, he would have used the Lebensohl convention, bidding two no-trump as an artificial negative.

In four hearts, South ducked the spade lead, won the second round and noted that the only real danger was a hostile trump break. He could not guard against most breaks where West was short, but he had a play that was technically sound and also gave the defenders a chance to err. After taking the spade ace, he led the heart nine from dummy, a play that would pin a bare eight in West and would also allow East to fall from grace with a knee-jerk cover. East did precisely that by putting in the 10, and South won, collecting West’s queen in the process.

Declarer now led a diamond to the king and played a second trump, ducking East’s eight. East returned a diamond; declarer won his ace, crossed to the club ace and took the trump finesse, then drew the last trump.

Then he played the club king and another club, conceding a club trick, after which his hand was high.

ANSWER: I would be unhappy about bidding either two or three clubs here. First, I might not have as much of a fit as I expected. Second, one call is an underbid, and the other overstates my offensive possibilities. I’d settle for a slightly flawed two-no-trump response, despite having only one diamond stopper. I’m the diamond jack short of my action — sue me!