ACES ON BRIDGE

Opening Lead: Spade five

“A hope beyond the shadow of a dream.”

— John Keats In today’s deal, South knew his spade queen plus his other high cards would be sitting over East’s strength, so he overbid slightly by forcing to game. Then, in three no-trump, he used a road map from the auction and the lead of the spade five to bring home his contract.

Declarer saw that he had to develop two extra tricks.To play on clubs would require the club honors to be split. By ducking trick one, he would leave West with no spades to play after he took his club trick, if spades were 6-2. That club split seemed unlikely on the auction, though.

So South felt the red suits offered more chances. East was likely to hold some values but to be shorter in diamonds than West, due to his known spade length.

So declarer rejected the natural line of playing the diamond king and a diamond to the nine. It seemed more likely that

East would hold one diamond honor and fewer than four diamonds.

Additionally, South saw that if he ducked the first spade, West might viciously return a heart after taking the first diamond. That would attack declarer’s entries while the diamonds were blocked. South would be unable to unscramble the red suits and might go down even when the red suits behaved.

So South won trick one, crossed to the heart queen and floated the diamond nine to West’s queen. He won the spade return and cashed the diamond king, heart ace and diamond ace. When the red suits behaved, declarer could take three more winners for his contract.

ANSWER: The range for a weak jump overcall can be expanded opposite a passed partner. Essentially, you can jump when your side is unlikely to have a game. If you would bid game facing a good raise, though, overcall one spade. Here, with no shortness and soft cards in the red suits, I would bid one spade. However, with the same hand but the spade queen instead of the king, I would bid two spades.

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