ACES ON BRIDGE

It is no matter what you teach them first, any more than what leg you shall put into your breeches first.

— Samuel Johnson

A fine place for instructive and free bridge material is Larry Cohen’s newsletter at larryco.com. Today’s hand from that source discusses splinter bids.

When you open one spade and hear a four- club response, it is forcing to game, promising decent values, with spa de fit and club shortness. Now you can cuebid, or take a chance on finding a heart control opposite by using Blackwood. The four- diamond and four- heart bids show controls and let you use Black wood with more confidence, to reach slam. Now all you have to do is make it.

When West leads the heart king against six spades, your preliminary diagnosis should be that there is a fast club loser and a slow heart loser. To succeed in your slam, you must set up the diamonds to create a home for your heart loser in hand.

A trump to the ace reveals the 2- 0 trump break. Now careful counting is required. A 5- 1 diamond break will sink you unless the queen drops. But you can cope with a 4- 2 diamond break — if you are careful.

Cash the diamond ace next and follow with a diamond to the king. Ruff a diamond high in hand, and only now do you draw a second round of trumps. Lead to dummy’s jack, trump another diamond, and go back to dummy in spades to cash the last diamond and discard your heart.

You can now surrender a club, but crossruff the last two tricks. Had you drawn trumps prematurely, you would have run out of spade winners. Try it if you don’t believe me!

ANSWER: There is no way in standard bidding to show this exact two- suiter, since a cuebid shows the majors and a jump to two notrump shows the red suits. But you must bid, and despite the fact that your diamonds are better than the spades, I would overcall one spade now. The space- consuming nature of the bid, and the fact that spades are the ranking suit, tips the balance for me. If you would like to contact Bobby Wolff, email him at