ACES ON BRIDGE

When South balances with one spade, West rebids his suit, then North makes a responsive double to show a good hand with spade tolerance. (Some would play this as penalty, but in hand-frequency terms, the other meaning makes much more sense.) After South shows his second suit, North drags a three-spade bid from his partner then raises him to game.

West leads out his top hearts, declarer ruffing the second. There is no advantage to be gained in discarding a club loser instead, although it doesn’t hurt. Declarer’s first move is to unblock the spade kingqueen; he then crosses to hand with a diamond and cashes the spade ace-jack, dummy matching West’s discards of a heart and a club.

If diamonds break or the jack falls doubleton, declarer is home, but

West shows out on the third round, marking him with precisely a 2=6=2=3 distribution. However, all is not lost, as the final diamond winner brings

West under pressure. In the three-card ending, if West comes down to a single heart, declarer puts him on lead with that suit and awaits a lead into his club tenace at trick 12. If West instead bares his club king (never a bad strategy in these positions), South calls for the club ace, and his club queen is the game-going trick.

South knows West holds the club king because if East had started with the red jacks and the club king, he probably would have responded to the opening bid. Also, West would have been grossly overbidding to act twice with only a 10-count. ANSWER: This auction calls for a heart lead. It is akin to a Lightner double, in which the double of a high-level contract calls for dummy’s first-bid suit. There is no reason not to lead the top of your doubleton.You could make a case for leading high from a three-card suit as well, but that is a bit of a digression.

If you would like to contact Bobby Wolff, email him at bobbywolff@mindspring.com