ACES ON BRIDGE

The Puritan hated bear-baiting, not because it gave pain to the bear, but because it gave pleasure to the spectators.

— Lord Macaulay

At the local duplicate, Mama Bear, Baby Bear and Papa Bear were all sitting West with their favorite partners. They each defended against three no-trump on similar auctions, on the lead of the diamond three.

Papa Bear told his story: “Declarer played low from dummy, and East won with his king to make the normal return of the diamond six. Declarer now played the spade king from the dummy, pitching a heart from hand. I won this and set up my diamonds … oops! Declarer claimed 11 tricks, and I got shout at!”

“What happened to you?” Goldilocks asked mama Bear, who replied, “Unlike Papa Bear, I decided to duck one round of spades in order to get a clear signal from my partner — but then declarer quickly cashed nine tricks in the shape of one spade, two diamonds and six club winners.”

“What about you?” Goldilocks asked Baby

Bear. He responded, “I saw that declarer must hold two cards out of the heart ace and the club king-queen since he had accepted the invitation to the game. If delcarer had the heart ace, I thought I could count nine tricks for him, so I had to assume East held that card. But now, unless we could take three heart tricks on the go, declarer would still have at least nine tricks (five spades, two diamonds and two clubs). Since setting the contract was paramount, I won the spade ace and switched to the heart king, followed by a low heart, successfully defeating the contract.”

“Very nicely done, and I will bear witness to that,” said Goldilocks.

ANSWER: You have too much shape to keep quiet, but two clubs would overstate your high-card values and leave your opponents more space than you would like, assuming they can indeed make a high-level contract. A preemptive three-club overcall is exactly right. At unfavorable vulnerability, some play these jumps as intermediate — a sensible idea.