ACES ON BRIDGE

“Whatever you do, do cautiously, and look to the end.”

— Anonymous

In today’s themed deal, declarer fell victim to a trump promotion that could have been avoided. South chose the jump to four spades on the strength of his intermediates, but they turned out not to be good enough.

Declarer won the club nine lead with the ace and played a spade to the eight, queen and ace. Back came a second club, taken by the king. Declarer then crossed to the diamond king, led a heart to the ace and threw his club on the diamond ace. Next came a diamond ruff, followed by the trump nine. East won and led the club queen. Now, whether South ruffed high or low, he had to lose two more tricks to the spade seven and heart queen.

There is a school of thought that most defenders follow up the line in trumps, just by force of habit. If declarer had followed that maxim here, he would have reasoned that

East either had a singleton spade (in which case nothing would work) or king-eight doubleton. (This might have been more likely than king-third, given that West surely held a doubleton in clubs, meaning a trump promotion was looming.)

Had declarer reasoned along these lines, he might have found the winning shot of a low spade from hand at trick eight, retaining his three high trumps to cope with West’s remaining seven-doubleton.

However, the best line is to win the club ace, unblock the diamond king and use dummy’s entries to pitch on the diamond ace and then ruff two diamonds in hand. That allows you to score four trump tricks to go with the six side-suit winners. ANSWER: There is no middle ground between a weak two and a pass when you have a good suit, as here.You lack the highcard strength for a one-level opening, but you have slightly more defense than you would need for a weak two. Still, if you do not open two spades here, your partner will never play you for a suit this good. Thrice blessed is he who gets his blow in first.