ACES ON BRIDGE

What we anticipate seldom occurs; what we least expect generally occurs.

— Benjamin Disraeli

Before playing to trick one, try to predict how the play might go. This is easier as declarer, knowing the full extent of the forces at your command, but defenders are also well advised to anticipate declarer’s play.

Your task may be handicapped by seeing only an opponent’s hand, as opposed to your partner’s, but the lead and the bidding will often help you establish enough of a picture to find the killing defense.

In today’s deal, South was in three no-trump after his partner showed a red two-suiter. West led the unbid suit and thoughtfully chose the nine, suggesting no higher honor. East, reading declarer to have strength in spades, could see that an attack in that suit would be unproductive. Instead, he turned his attention to shutting out dummy’s long suit.

Hoping to knock out the late entry to the table, East took the spade ace and shifted to a low heart at trick two. Declarer won the heart king and played a diamond from dummy, but East held off. South tried his best by clearing the diamonds, but East simply returned a club. The heart queen did not provide the needed entry, and declarer ended up with only seven tricks, two down.

For the record, if the heart jack and diamond queen were switched, this defense would also have sufficed to defeat the contract. Declarer could win the heart jack at trick two and play on diamonds, but now repeated heart leads remove dummy’s entry before diamonds are established.

ANSWER: Bid three diamonds. You have a good heart stopper, but to try three notrump now would be unilateral. You are wide open in both black suits and would certainly prefer partner to declare a notrump contract from his side of the table if that is the right contract. Indeed, five diamonds could easily be correct, so repeat the suit and let partner explore.