ACES ON BRIDGE

A desperate disease requires a dangerous remedy.

— Guy Fawkes

At the Las Vegas Nationals, let us first watch Jason Hackett, declaring three diamonds. The defense started with the king, ace and a third club to the queen. East shifted to a trump, to West’s king, followed by a switch to hearts. Since West had passed and had shown 10 points, Jason knew to rise with the ace and run his trumps.

Dummy had reduced to the spade A-K and the Q-7 of hearts. If East pitches a spade, declarer cashes dummy’s top spades and takes trick 13 with the spade nine. If East throws a heart, declarer goes to a top spade and ruffs a heart, and dummy is good — a classic ruffing squeeze.

By contrast, Bob Lipsitz declared three no-trump as North. He won the lead of the spade queen and ran the diamond 10, ducked by West. On the second diamond, East pitched a heart. West took the king to play the club ace, and East decided not to encourage (in case declarer had 3=3=3=4 shape, in which case three rounds of clubs would give him his ninth trick).

West shifted back to spades, and Lipsitz now inferred that East’s carding suggested that the heart finesse was wrong. So he won the spade king and ran the diamond suit.

On the last diamond, West pitched a club, North dropped a spade and East came down to a spade, a club winner and the doubleton heart king. Next, came a club from dummy — and what was West to do? If he hopped up with the king, Lipsitz’s jack would be good. If he ducked, East could win his club queen and cash his spade, but would then be endplayed to lead a heart into the ace-queen.

This is a perfect example of a winkle.

BID WITH THE ACES

ANSWER: Jump to four spades. A limit raise of three spades seems about right on value, but how will partner know which of his cards are working? Such quantitative calls should be used only with balanced hands. So much here will depend on how the hands mesh that you should bite the bullet and raise to game. Who knows? Something good may happen!

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