ACES ON BRIDGE

“Perfection of means and confusion of goals seem, in my opinion, to characterize our age.”

— Albert Einstein

North-South bid to a pushy four-spade contract here when South up-valued the honors in his partner’s suit and, expecting the missing club honors to be on his left, bid one more for the road.

After cashing the top clubs and receiving an odd count-signal from his partner, West found the excellent defense of the diamond ace and another diamond, attacking the late entry to dummy. West’s defense was based on the fact that East had followed with the two lowest clubs at his second turn, suggesting more interest in the lower of the red suits.

Upon winning with the diamond king, declarer saw he needed to dispose of his remaining diamond on a heart. One line was to unblock the heart ace-king, finesse the spade 10 and cash the spade ace before playing the heart queen. That would succeed when West had the spade queen and either hearts were 3-3 or West had doubletons in each major. For this to work, assuming the clubs were 6-3 as the carding had suggested, West would need to have only two spades. If that were the case, East would have the long spades, which made it more likely that the spade queen was on declarer’s right.

So declarer called for the spade 10 from dummy at trick five and let it run. He then unblocked the top hearts and returned to the spade ace to throw his remaining diamond on the heart queen. When West was unable to ruff, the game was home.

ANSWER: With little hope of game opposite a passed partner, your priorities should shift toward pre-empting the opponents with a weak two-spade opening. Partner is aware that you could have this much in third chair and is not banned from competing or inviting game with a fitting hand, so this sound tactical maneuver does not have much to lose.