ACES ON BRIDGE

Peter Weichsel found a pretty line of play as declarer here, at the Memphis 2019 Norman Kay Platinum Pairs. He was playing with Jill Meyers against Steve Beatty and Fred Stewart.

Weichsel could have defeated three no-trump on a spade lead, but he did not know his partner had a diamond rather than a heart control. So he saved, and against four spades Stewart led the club jack, ducked all around, with the club continuation going to the queen and king. East exited with a low spade to declarer’s king, captured the spade queen with the ace, then got off play with his last trump to declarer’s jack. Declarer then ran all his spades.

East had to keep the diamond king guarded — he was all but known to have that card on the bidding — so he reduced to the doubleton heart king. Weichsel then crossed to the diamond ace and ran the hearts via the finesse to make his game. West could have broken up the squeeze by shifting to a diamond at trick two, extracting the late entry to dummy. He was no doubt afraid that declarer might get his second club away on a diamond; but East was heavily favored to hold the diamond king for his bidding, or at least a trump honor, in which case declarer would not be able to run the diamonds immediately. Similarly, a single quick discard was not likely to be enough if declarer had the singleton diamond king, with the heart suit still to deal with.

Plus 420 was worth 60 out of 63 matchpoints to Weichsel.