ACES ON BRIDGE

Take care! Kingdoms are destroyed by bandits, houses by rats, and widows by suitors.

— Ihara Saikaku

Dick Budd, playing with Robert Ryder, found an opportunity for not one but two nice plays on this same deal in the first final session of the 2000 Silver Ribbon Pairs in Cincinnati.

Most Souths would protect with a double over West’s weak two, keeping hearts in the game, but Budd preferred to bid “where he lived” with three clubs. North’s cue-bid was an attempt to reach the higher-scoring no-trump strain, but South had no spade stopper, so he jumped to five clubs. Four clubs might be enough for some, but the singleton spade was working opposite known weakness. Perhaps South should have offered diamonds along the way, since North had not absolutely guaranteed club support with his cue-bid advance.

On the odd opening lead of the spade ace and a spade continuation, Budd ruffed high, then drew two rounds of trumps, ending in dummy with the club nine.

He ruffed another spade, then went to dummy with the heart ace to ruff still another spade. A diamond to the ace let him draw the last trump and cash the fourth club, pitching a heart from his hand.

The last trump now squeezed East in the red suits. Budd did not have to guess the diamonds, since East had to pitch one to guard against the heart nine: a classic show-up squeeze. Plus 620 was a fair score for NorthSouth, but had it not been for West’s spade continuation, declarer would have lacked the entries to reverse the dummy and pick up the diamonds, so 11 tricks would have been the limit. ANSWER: Raise to three no-trump. Do not bother using Stayman on your weak major. Four spades may fall victim to bad breaks, while the no-trump game can get there on pure firepower. What is more, using Stayman gives away information to the hand on lead. With as little as a black jack in addition to your values, you might look for slam if you could identify a fit.