ACES ON BRIDGE

A lifetime of happiness! No man alive could bear it: It would be hell on earth. — George Bernard Shaw

Neil Silverman and Robert Lebi have each represented their countries, the U.S. and Canada, respectively, but they were playing together in Philadelphia last spring. Here, Silverman had an opportunity to test his skills after Lebi had shown a distributional raise in hearts by his jump to three hearts at his first turn. Modern expert technique is tending to an approach in which most limit raises start with a cue-bid. Accordingly, the jump raise has morphed over the years from a forcing raise to a limit raise to a pre-emptive raise. These days, though, many use the jump raise as somewhere between a limit raise and a pre-emptive raise.

Silverman bid on to five hearts over five diamonds. After the lead of the diamond king, East went up with the ace, planning to continue the attack on diamonds. Declarer ruffed and led the club 10 from hand (just in case) to dummy’s queen.

When that held, he ran

BOBBY the heart queen, covered

WOLFF all around, then drove out the club ace. West now played a second diamond, and Silverman pitched a club from hand, leaving the defense helpless. Whoever won the diamond would have to lead a spade or diamond. Declarer could ruff the diamond in dummy and pitch a spade from hand, then advance the heart nine and bring hearts in for no loser.

If East had been able to win the second diamond, declarer could have adopted the same approach, but would have needed the spade finesse to work.

ANSWER: You have a relatively simple decision here. Your partner has clubs and spades and has indirectly limited his hand by his failure to jump to two spades. But he could certainly have 17 high-card points and a 5-4 pattern, for example. Does that mean you should pass? With three working honors in the black suits, I think the hand is just worth a raise to two spades. If partner had opened one diamond, I might pass now. If you would like to contact Bobby Wolff, email him at