ACES ON BRIDGE
Opening Lead: Diamond four
“I try to be aware, flexible and unbiased in my thinking. If I have learnt anything, it is that life forms no logical patterns. It is haphazard and full of beauties which I try to catch as they fly by, for who knows whether any of them will ever return?”
— Margot Fonteyn
Try your luck at today’s deal. Cover up the East-West hands and see how you fare.
You reach four spades after a preemptive raise from partner, and you receive a diamond lead to the queen and your ace. The obvious point in the play is to try to set up the hearts for a possible club discard, but you also want to keep East off lead to avoid a potentially embarrassing club shift. To improve your chances, you must first prepare an endplay, so ruff a diamond at trick two and lead a trump. West takes his ace and returns a trump. You win in hand, ruff your last diamond and cash the heart king.
Now you lead a heart and put in the 10. West gets his jack but must lead a club or give you a ruff-and-discard. This line produces a club discard if the heart honors are split, if West has exactly three hearts to the queen-jack, or if either defender has queen-jack doubleton. If the discard is not available, you can still play for East to hold the club ace.
The point of the deal is that if you do not ruff a diamond at trick two, you do not have enough entries to strip the hand of diamonds. If you play hearts before ruffing dummy’s last diamond, West has a safe diamond exit. Of course, if East gains the lead in hearts, he will play a club through your king, taking two tricks there. Meanwhile, if you finesse the heart 10 on the first round, you end up with only two heart tricks and cannot build a discard for yourself.
ANSWER: You have neither the shape nor the suit quality for a two-level overcall, but some would still try two diamonds when non-vulnerable, if only to get your side into the auction. My preference, though, whether vulnerable or not, is to pass now and contest the part-score later on, perhaps with a balance of two no-trump to show the minors. With the diamond jack instead of a small diamond, I might feel compelled to act at once.