ACES ON BRIDGE

*Drury: a maximum pass with heart support

Opening Lead: Spade king

This deal features Zia Mahmood at work, coaxing a mistake from his world-class opponent.

Both West players in Zia’s match led the spade king against four hearts, followed by a second round to the ace after East’s vehement encouragement. Seeing little future in the side suits, both defenders did well to continue spades, offering up a ruff-and-discard in the hope of promoting their own trumps or wresting control away from declarer.

The two declarers took the ruff in hand, unwilling to part with a high trump from dummy, and here the paths diverged. South in the other room simply drew two rounds of trumps, finding the 4-1 break, then tried to establish a club trick by leading one to the king. West won with the ace and accurately continued with a fourth spade. Declarer had to ruff in his hand, ceding trump control to East. The game was one down.

Zia gazed into his crystal ball and determined that the ruff-and-sluff indicated trumps were 4-1. He thus turned his mind to sneaking his 10th trick in the club suit through West, the defender who did not know the trump position.

He innocently advanced the club eight at trick four, and when West played low, it was game over. Zia won the club queen, unblocked dummy’s trumps and came to hand with a diamond. He drew the last trump and cashed the remaining diamonds, scoring up his game.

West had needed to rise with the club ace and continue spades; easier said than done?

ANSWER: You must try three no-trump now. Yes, you could be wide open in diamonds, but that is a risk you have to take. There is little room for investigation, and to raise hearts would be a stab in the dark. Partner does not need an excellent suit for his jump rebid. If hearts do not run, you may come to nine tricks from the side suits.