ACES ON BRIDGE

“Last week I helped my friend stay put. It’s a lot easier than helping them move. I just went over to his house and made sure that he did not start to load his stuff into a truck.”

— Mitch Hedberg

This hand was thoughtfully played by declarer, but the defense erred in a subtle way. See if you can spot the mistake.

South elected to open one spade and was soon boosted to game. West led a diamond to East’s ace. East could see the clubs would provide discards for declarer, so he shifted accurately to hearts. West captured declarer’s king and returned the suit to East’s queen. A third heart was ruffed by declarer, who now needed to play East for the spade king-jack.

Crossing to a top club, declarer called for the spade nine, which held. A spade to the seven uncovered the good and bad news. Declarer had no trumps left in dummy to cope with East’s spades, but he was able to unearth a counter. To reach trump parity with East, declarer played a diamond to the king and ruffed a diamond. When two further rounds of clubs stood up, declarer was conveniently positioned in dummy at trick 12, able to pick up East’s spade king-jack via the trump coup.

That was nicely played, but East could have done better. In an effort to protect his setting trick in trumps, East should have exited passively in a minor suit at trick four, to avoid helping declarer shorten his own trumps. Declarer would win the club exit in dummy and advance the spade nine as before, which East would need to cover to prevent declarer from repeating the trump finesse so easily. This would leave declarer an entry short to bring off the trump coup.

ANSWER: Bid three hearts. Your hand has a lot of potential in hearts, but not quite enough to insist on game. Your singleton in partner’s suit is of unknown value — good opposite the ace, but bad facing slower cards like the king or queen. Let partner decide for himself whether he has a good or bad hand.