ACES ON BRIDGE

An exception is nothing else than a rule that applies exceptionally.

— Fausto Cecignani

One of the most unfortunate things that occurred in the 2000 Venice Cup in Bermuda was the illness of one of the Danish stars; Charlotte Koch-Palmund had to return home mid-tournament. Although her presence was sorely missed, the Danes did win the bronze medal.

When Denmark met France in the early stages of the tournament, it gave Koch-Palmund a chance to break one of the cardinal rules on defense — which just happened to be the only way to set the hand! Put yourself in the West seat.

Koch-Palmund sat West and led three rounds of clubs against four spades. When declarer ruffed and played a heart to the king to run the spade jack, Koch-Palmund pitched a diamond. Now declarer correctly decided to repeat the spade finesse, and when East covered the spade seven with the eight, declarer won in hand and led a low diamond. Koch-Palmund hopped up with the king and had reached the critical point of the defense.

She made the key play when she broke all the rules by giving declarer a ruff-and-discard — an extra trick that did not aid declarer’s cause.

Since declarer needed the trump in dummy for the spade finesse, she ruffed in hand, but that gave East the chance to discard her last diamond on this trick. Now when South tried to cross to dummy for the trump play, that let East ruff in, for one down.

As an aside, ruff-sluffs are most appropriate when you can see or infer that you have no side-suit winners.

BID WITH THE ACES

ANSWER: Bid three hearts. A simple raise is not enough with all this playing potential. When you have a void in the enemy suit, always opt for aggression. Some would even bid four hearts, but that is a bit much with such poor trumps and might overexcite your partner. A threespade call would be right if your heart three were the ace — showing a splinter raise to game.

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