ACES ON BRIDGE

Chris Willenken won the battle on this deal from the 2002 Vanderbilt even though Team Nickell, his opponents, won the match.

West, Eric Rodwell, led the spade queen, promising the king. Declarer won with the ace and led a diamond to the queen, which Rodwell ducked smoothly! Willenken now decided that if Jeff Meckstroth, East, had the diamond ace without the jack, he might have hopped up with it to play spades through in case the diamond queen was declarer’s ninth trick. So, before playing a diamond up, declarer crossed to the heart queen and ran the club 10 successfully. He repeated the club finesse and tested hearts, finding the 4-2 split.

Sticking to his plan, Willenken cashed his club jack before playing a diamond to the king and exiting with a diamond to endplay Rodwell, for plus 430.

Note that if Rodwell takes the first diamond and exits passively in hearts, declarer will cash the diamond king before taking the club finesse as an avoidance play. If West clears spades instead, declarer will play a diamond to the king and fall back on the club finesse if necessary.

It can often be tactically sound to lead from dummy in this way. East may fly up with an ace to keep you from sneaking a ninth trick. If that doesn’t happen, you may place the ace with West.

As a corollary: If East is revealed to have ducked an ace, you might infer that he has an additional control to reassure him you were not about to run nine tricks.

ANSWER: While most players routinely upgrade hands, they do not like to look on the negative side. The 4-3-3-3 shape, no intermediates and two unsupported honors are not a net positive, so this hand isn’t worth its 15 HCP. At least you have three quick tricks, but I suspect you would not like to be in game facing an average 10-count. Still, the field will open one no-trump, so I would follow suit with reservation.