ACES ON BRIDGE
“‘I can’t explain myself, I’m afraid, sir,’ said Alice,‘because I’m not myself, you see.’“‘I don’t see,’ said the Caterpillar.”
— Lewis Carroll
In today’s deal, North chose to open one heart, thinking he might not be able to catch up if he passed, and being unwilling to distort his hand by opening one spade to facilitate his rebid. Then, at his next turn, he raised directly to four spades. While West could have doubled again, he considered it unlikely that his side had game, and doubling for one off seemed unnecessary. With his slow cards in the red suits, West decided to take the low road.
Declarer took the diamond king lead in hand (East following with the jack) and then started on trumps. He imagined he would need the heart finesse, but he was sure that it could wait. He was wrong.
West correctly ducked the first trump play, necessary if East held the spade jack. Declarer took the spade 10 and played another trump to
West’s king. Cashing the spade ace now would have allowed declarer an entry to his hand. West instead forced dummy in diamonds. After ruffing in dummy, declarer led another trump, finally creating a trump entry to hand, or so he thought.
Not so fast! West won, cashed the club ace and played a third diamond. Declarer had to ruff in dummy again, and he was now locked in dummy to endure the indignity of losing a heart trick to West’s king.
South needed only to finesse in hearts at trick two to land his game. As it went, West had to cash his club winner before tapping dummy with a third diamond, or he would be endplayed with the club ace to grant declarer an entry to hand.
ANSWER: Bid three no-trump. A takeout double could get your side to spades, but that probably precludes the most likely game of three no-trump.You hope partner has a source of tricks, or the diamond ace, or even a heart stopper.You can still get to a suit contract if your partner has a long suit of his own. If all else fails, maybe your left-hand opponent has one or zero hearts, making the defenders unable to both set up and cash the suit.