ACES ON BRIDGE

— Julia Carney Today’s deal features a small point of technique that might escape you until you see it in practice.

Against your grand slam in spades (yes, North should simply have shown his heart king over the five-no-trump inquiry), West leads the trump 10, and you count only 12 top winners even if hearts break. You therefore need to take one extra trick from a diamond ruff before you draw trump. You win the trump lead with the king, cross to the diamond ace, and ruff a diamond. You then draw trump, throwing a club from dummy. How best now to tackle the hearts for five tricks?

Just in case West holds four hearts to the jack, you should lead your heart 10 to dummy’s ace. When you continue with a low heart to the queen, East shows out. Because of your earlier unblock, the way is then clear for you to lead the heart four to dummy’s nine.you can then discard a diamond and a club on dummy’s established hearts.

You can see what would happen if you had kept the heart 10 in your hand. When you lead it on the third round, West would play low. With no side entry to dummy, you would then score three heart tricks instead of five.

(This same unblock would be necessary with five hearts to the A-K-8 facing Q-9-2. To protect against East’s having the bare jack, you must unblock the nine on the first round of the suit.) All pass

ANSWER: In this deal your target should be to win your small trumps singly, rather than letting declarer do the same. Best, therefore, is to lead the heart queen. If you lead the diamond jack, you may let declarer ruff away your diamond winners. With, for example, ace-fifth in spades, a diamond lead would be more attractive.