ACES ON BRIDGE

“Is there anything in life so disenchanting as attainment?”

— Robert Louis Stevenson

This deal gives rise to a classic defensive position; cover the South and West cards and play along as East. When your partner leads the spade six, declarer calls for a small card from dummy. How should you defend?

Declarer surely holds the spade king, and you can count six diamond tricks for him, along with whatever he has in the rounded suits. Inserting the spade jack might limit South to one spade trick when partner holds the spade 10, but then declarer will make it home if he holds the club ace.

Even if partner had both the club ace and spade 10, you would also need him to hold a top heart (nearly impossible on the auction) for it to be right to insert the spade jack. In that scenario, your heart king will serve as a re-entry before declarer has established clubs. Instead, you should bank your hopes on scoring four heart tricks. If your partner has four of them, this may not be such an unreasonable request.

Grab the spade ace at once, then table the heart nine. This is necessary not only as a surrounding play, to pin dummy’s eight, but also to unblock the suit in preparation for a third-round finesse. Declarer covers with the heart 10, partner winning the jack and returning the five to your king. The heart four now picks up declarer’s queen-six in front of partner’s ace-seven, setting the game in double-quick time.

It may be right for a defender to lead a larger spot-card from three small when one has raised the suit, but here West’s 10 seems too big to waste at trick one. ?

ANSWER: You could bid clubs, but that may crowd you out of finding a 4-4 heart fit if West raises spades to a high level. It is better to double, bringing the hearts to light. By contrast, if you had enough to force to game, you could afford to start with a call of two clubs. The rationale is similar to responding to one club with a major and longer diamonds. Get the majors in if your hand is worth no more than one bid.