ACES ON BRIDGE

The aged love what is practical while impetuous youth longs only for what is dazzling.

— Petrarch

When North opens one heart and hears South respond in spades, he might make a splinter jump to four clubs, but the singleton king is an inelegant holding for that call.

An alternative route (old-fashioned, but still useful) is to jump shift into diamonds before supporting spades. This kind of bidding shows a singleton in the fourth suit. A player who bids three suits without jumping might have a doubleton in the fourth suit. However, if he has jumped along the way, as here, he should guarantee either 12 or 13 cards in his three suits. Now South knows that North has a singleton club, with great strength in the other three suits.

South has top spades and a perfect fit for hearts. But since he is not completely sure whether North has four spades and three diamonds or the other way around, South offers a choice of slam, letting North correct back to the major suit.

After a club lead to the ace for a trump shift, South must win in dummy, cash the two top hearts and ruff a heart high. Then a diamond to dummy for a second heart ruff high lets declarer conclude the play by drawing trumps, claiming 12 tricks when they split.

South would not be able to follow this line if he had drawn three rounds of trumps. Also note that South must use his top spades in hand for ruffing, to guard against the danger of an overruff. The low trumps are used for entries to dummy.

ANSWER: Facing a passed partner, you have only two viable options — and doubling is not one of them.You can pass and hope to balance if the opponents find hearts — and how bad could it be to pass throughout if they don’t? Or you can take the very active position of overcalling one spade. I’d rather do that if my spade king were the queen-jack.

If you would like to contact Bobby Wolff, email him at bobbywolff@mindspring.com