ACES ON BRIDGE
“Anxiety is an even better teacher than reality, for one can temporarily evade reality by avoiding the distasteful situation; but anxiety is a source of education always present because one carries it within.”
— Rollo May
East’s decision to bid four diamonds was well judged. Understandably, North removed South’s double to five clubs, and now neither defender had any real reason to advance.
Against five clubs, West went with an imaginative attack on hearts. Declarer noted his three potential major-suit losers and saw that his only real chance to make 11 tricks was to find East with a two-honor doubleton in spades — or perhaps with a doubleton king — should he fail to unblock. After taking East’s heart jack with the queen, declarer ruffed a diamond and then cashed the spade ace early, at a point when East might not know he should jettison the spade king.As it was, the fall of the spade jack boded well for declarer.
After crossing back to hand with a low trump to his king, declarer ruffed a second diamond in dummy. Next, declarer led a trump toward his hand, giving East a problem: If
East discarded from a red suit, he saw that he would likely be endplayed in spades to concede a ruff-and-discard after declarer had eliminated the diamonds and exited with the heart ace and another heart. Accordingly, East threw the spade king in the hope that West had both the spade queen and spade 10 and could get on lead in hearts to cash them.
Unluckily for East, declarer could now simply knock out the spade queen, establishing dummy’s nine and eight as winners. In fact, he could eventually discard his heart loser on the spades to emerge with an unlikely 12 tricks.
ANSWER: You have too much playing strength for a simple raise to two spades, but any stronger raise would be a greater distortion.You still need a fair bit from partner to make game, so two spades will have to do. Two-and-a-half spades would be ideal, but when the opponents stay silent and you have a shapely minimum, you can be sure partner has a good hand — or that the opponents will balance over two spades.