ACES ON BRIDGE

“Poverty is no disgrace to a man, but it is confoundedly inconvenient.”

— Sydney Smith

The battle for the pairs event at the 2000 Cavendish Invitational tightened up at the end. With a set to go, the leaders never seriously threatened to break average. That left the path clear for Eric Rodwell-Marty Fleisher, and by the thirdto-last round they had moved into a narrow lead. Then this board gave Rodwell the chance to win the event. Naturally, he grabbed it with both hands.

Rodwell is never one to hold back when game is in the offing, and he had something in reserve for his jump to four spades at his third turn. The best defense is a club lead — and maybe East should have bid three clubs over the double to make life easier for his partner.

West’s actual choice of the heart ace, in order to determine which minor to shift to, was a reasonable one. Unluckily for him, the club shift at trick two came too late. Rodwell played low, and East took the jack and exited with a second heart. Rodwell ruffed and took the top spades, ruffed a heart, then cashed four diamonds, ending in dummy. Now he led a trump, and in the two-card ending, East had to play clubs into dummy’s tenace to concede the game-going trick.

In the end, the winners’ margin of victory was a full board. Interestingly, this represented the clearest win in the event over the previous five years, since the event had nearly always gone down to the very last board. Even on this occasion, the winners needed three good results at the end to hold off second place.

ANSWER: Your hand has suddenly gotten a lot better.You can express this via a fourheart splinter bid, which shows the main features of your hand: the trump support and heart shortness. You would like to have an ace or king, but long trumps make up for the other deficits.