ACES ON BRIDGE
Condemn the fault and not the actor of it?
— William Shakespeare
Mark Horton has a regular feature in which he spotlights anonymous hands where declarer has not made the most of his assets. He analyzed today’s deal, which came up at the end of a short match in a major team championship.
South reached three no-trump after a 14-16 no-trump and transfer. When West led the club two, the obvious place for declarer to look for a ninth trick was in the heart suit. South opted for simplicity, cashing the heart king and playing a heart to the jack. East won with the queen and returned the diamond queen. Declarer took that with dummy’s ace and cashed the heart ace, but when West discarded a spade, South’s time was up.
It is hard to criticize declarer for choosing the simplest line, but, in fact, there was no rush to go after the hearts. Rather than playing on hearts directly, declarer should have cashed three more rounds of clubs, discarding a diamond and a spade from dummy.
On the last club, East must keep all his hearts and will therefore have to come down to one spade or just three diamonds. If he pitches a diamond, then declarer can play on hearts as before, but will now lose no more than two hearts and two diamonds. However, if East pitches a spade instead, his king will now be bare, and declarer can cross to the spade ace before touching hearts, switching horses to set up his ninth winner in spades. In other words, hearts can wait, but spades cannot.
ANSWER: In the context of what you might hold for a balancing double, you do have some extras. Given that you have four trumps, a raise to two spades looks sensible here. Much may depend on whether your partner is short or long in clubs, but it seems reasonable to bid now.
If you would like to contact Bobby Wolff, email him at bobbywolff@mindspring.com