ACES ON BRIDGE
“The poet and the dreamer are distinct, Diverse, sheer opposite, antipodes.”
— John Keats
England’s most prestigious knockout event, the Crockfords Cup, was played online this year, but it still brought up many interesting deals. Here, North could have chosen to pass four diamonds, but five diamonds posed South an interesting play problem.
At both tables in the match, West led an unfortunate club against the game.The first declarer won in hand and finessed in hearts. East won and returned a club to dummy’s ace. Now declarer started on trumps, West winning the second round. At this stage, West should have returned a heart, cutting declarer off from the dummy, but he tried a spade instead.
In the other room, declarer advanced the diamond queen at trick two. West let it hold, and South took the heart finesse. Now a club shift seems best, but
East erred by returning a spade, which declarer let run to dummy. No swing!
Declarer can make the hand simply by drawing trumps. West must win the second to shift to a spade, but declarer counters by winning the spade ace and running all his trumps; then he leads a club to the ace. Dummy is down to the bare spade queen and two hearts, and East is forced to bare his spade king, whereupon he is thrown in with the spade king to lead around to dummy’s heart tenace.
If declarer counts West’s 8 points in the minors and considers that he did not lead a major-suit singleton, South can place both major-suit kings with East and can infer West’s shape as 2=2=3=6. So, he should probably get the ending right.
ANSWER: You would usually open one diamond on this, but you can take certain liberties in third chair. Open one heart as a lead-directing maneuver. You probably do not want partner to raise diamonds. Similarly, if the final contract is declared by your left-hand opponent, you really do not want your partner to lead diamonds.
If you would like to contact Bobby Wolff, email him at bobbywolff@mindspring.com