ACES ON BRIDGE

In this hand from a World Junior Championship, the first instructive theme is that you should always try to cherish your partner and protect him from error. The second is that it may not be too late to allow for his mistakes, as long as you do not let emotion get in the way.

Today, North made up for his failure to open the bidding by driving his partner’s light opening to game. West led a club, and it was easy for Andrew Moss, East, to take dummy’s 10 with his queen. Now your trump intermediates tell you that three rounds of spades will promote a trump trick for the defense. How do you persuade partner to find the play?

Moss found the right answer by switching to the spade queen. When he followed up with the spade king, he had made it easy for his partner to see he should overtake this and play a third spade. Good technique, but what if your partner sleepily plays small on the second spade? What should you do next?

Declarer has all the top red-suit cards but cannot ruff any spades in dummy. That means he has five trump tricks, two diamond tricks, and at least two club tricks. Declarer must have a 4=5=2=2 shape for the play so far to make any sense, so East should switch to a club now, to break up a squeeze on his partner in the black suits.

If you play a diamond, for example, declarer takes his seven red-suit winners, and the last trump forces your partner to concede, as there is still a link to dummy’s clubs.

“Every man is equally entitled to protection by the law.”

— Andrew Jackson