ACES ON BRIDGE

In today’s deal, South’s four-club call shows a decent five-card suit. Thereafter, cue-bidding sees North use Key-card Blackwood and drive to slam. West leads the diamond king; after winning with the diamond ace and seeing East follow, how do you plan to make another 11 tricks for the contract?

If spades break no worse than 3-1, you can draw trumps and run the clubs, discarding diamonds from dummy. If trumps are 2-2, you will make an overtrick by ruffing two diamonds in dummy. By contrast, if East has four trumps, the contract looks almost impossible to make.

However, when it is West who has four trumps, you need to be very careful. In that scenario, with the cards as shown, the only way to make the contract is to ruff a heart at trick two. Not until then can you play the trump ace. When East discards, you continue with a low trump and cover West’s card in dummy. After ruffing a second heart with the queen, you will lead the trump seven and again cover West’s card. After drawing the last trump and throwing a diamond from hand, you will have taken the first seven tricks. At this point, the clubs will provide the five tricks you need to make the contract. Note that if you played a trump to the ace at trick two, the contract fails because dummy is an entry short for the two heart ruffs you need as the cards lie. ANSWER: There is no universal agreement about what doubles of this sort mean, but here your hand tells you that your partner has a good hand with spades. After all, who else has the spades? You should pass and lead from your five-card suit. You may not beat one no-trump, but there is no reason to assume you have a better hole to go to.