ACES ON BRIDGE

However entrancing it is to wander unchecked through a garden of bright images, are we not enticing your mind from another subject of almost equal importance? — Ernest Bramah

It never ceases to amaze me that declarers so often rush the play in a grand slam. After all, if a grand slam isn’t worth thinking about for a few extra seconds, what contract will you consider worthy of reflection?

In today’s deal, an efficient bidding sequence led to seven spades, and West led a trump. Declarer reasoned that as long as clubs broke no worse than 4-2, he was home free. So he took the trump lead in dummy, played a diamond to the ace and ruffed a diamond on board. A heart to the ace was followed by the ruff of declarer’s last diamond with dummy’s final trump. Then came the club ace for a heart discard, which passed off peacefully, but when he continued with the club king, on which he threw the heart queen,

West unkindly ruffed.

What South had not noticed was that he could have coped with the 5-1 club break. Although it is not strictly a dummy reversal, if declarer had used dummy’s high trumps for the purposes of drawing trumps and used South’s high trumps for ruffing, he could have found his way to 13 tricks without any real problem.

Win the trump lead in dummy, cash the club ace, then ruff a club high. Play a spade to dummy and ruff a second club high. A third spade to the table draws the last trump, and now the clubs are established, allowing all of South’s red-suit losers to be discarded. He ends up with four clubs, two aces and seven trump tricks.

ANSWER: The question is whether we need to lead diamonds to set up the suit before declarer gets rid of his losers in that suit, or whether now is the time to lead a top spade, since it might be our last chance. Even a trump lead might be right if clubs aren’t running. I’d go for a diamond, but without much confidence in my choice.