ACES ON BRIDGE
North-South did well to reach their best game here, and South did even better to make it. North’s three-diamond rebid was a slight stretch, but it was justified by his strong suit. When South repeated his suit, North wisely raised. He might have tried three notrump, but the heart situation was doubtful, and South would often have six spades here.
The defenders began with three rounds of hearts, forcing declarer to ruff. Most South players would simply bash out all three top spades, but South paused for reflection when West’s spade jack appeared on the second round of trumps. The principle of Restricted Choice suggested it was twice as likely that West began with jack-doubleton as jack-9-low, from which West could play either top card at his second turn. Since West would hardly play the spade jack from jack-third here, South could put some faith in a 4-2 break.
Declarer duly knocked out the diamond king and then won the club shift to run the diamonds. East could either ruff in and surrender his trump trick, or he could discard and fall victim to a trump coup in the endgame. Either way, declarer’s trump loser would disappear.
There was, however, a defense against the game. West could have shifted to a club early on, attacking dummy’s entries. When declarer came to knock out the diamond king, a club return from East would cut declarer off from dummy. East would ruff in on the third diamond to leave declarer stuck in hand with two club losers.
ANSWER: There is little to gain by overcalling one heart with this flat hand, and these feeble diamonds under the bidder make the hand worse. A supporting spot-card like the heart 10 would help a lot because it would increase the lead-directing value. Incidentally, overcalling spades over a minor would at least shut out the hearts, but there would be no such benefit here. Overcalls that do not consume space should be sounder than this.