ACES ON BRIDGE

The clever men at Oxford Know all there is to be knowed. But they none of them know half as much As intelligent Mr.Toad. — Kenneth Grahame

Sometimes declarer needs to find a way to entice a defender to continue with the suit that has been initially led, rather than make a potentially damaging shift. Declarer found a neat solution to just that problem in today’s deal.

After North raised his partner’s twono-trump opening to three, West was aware that since North-South had not tried to locate a major suit fit, it might be right to attack in a major rather than a minor. But West was unimpressed with the quality of his major suits, and had a natural sequence to attack from, so he chose the club jack for his opening salvo.

South immediately saw that he would need four tricks from clubs to make his game. That would be easy to do if the suit broke 3-2, but declarer thought that this was relatively unlikely to be so.After all, why would West be leading from a three-card suit, as he must have at least one four-carder available?

South realized that if he cleared the clubs, East would surely show where his values lay. Then West would be likely to find the diamond switch, after which South would lose at least four tricks in that suit.

So at trick one, South dropped the seven under the jack. West, seeing his partner’s eight and noting that neither the four nor the three had put in an appearance, took the eight as encouraging and played a second club. Declarer wrapped up his contract, unsuccessfully trying to conceal a smirk as he did so.

ANSWER: Whenever you have the balance of high cards — say with the spade ace instead of the queen — it is natural to lead trumps to try to kill the cross-ruff. After all, can declarer really come to 11 tricks if not on a cross-ruff? That isn’t the case here, so I would lead a low diamond rather than a heart, trying to set up or cash my winners before declarer can discard red-suit losers on spades. bobbywolff@mindspring.com