ACES ON BRIDGE

Every two years, the Asia and Pacific zone holds an open tournament called the Asia Pacific Bridge Congress. In 2012, the seventh iteration of this event was held in Fukuoka, close to the southwestern corner of Japan. The format was a two-day pairs event, then a teams round-robin, followed by knockout tournaments for women, juniors, seniors and an open bracket. Meanwhile, various events were run simultaneously for amateurs.

In the open pairs event, David Hoffman of Australia found the best contract and the right line for today’s deal.

If you had the South cards and your partner opened the bidding, would you let him out below slam? Surely not, especially if you discovered you had all the aces.

However, six no-trump on an unlikely diamond lead is horrible as the cards lie. The field, surprisingly, did not force to that slam with the South cards, but Hoffman did even better when he played six hearts on a trump lead.

Hoffman drew trumps and then made full use of the diamond spots. He led the diamond 10 to the ace and ran the jack on the way back. He could then regain the lead and pass the diamond nine to establish dummy’s eight. That line comes in more than 76% of the time — if West can bring himself to duck the diamond 10 when he holds both honors, kudos to him! Still, with spades 3-3, you would have expected more than a few pairs to get to that slam and make it — not so. Bringing in 980 was worth 80% of the available matchpoints.

ANSWER: Do not get cute. A red-suit lead would be too dangerous. While you might be able to beat the game outright, you are more likely to set up discards for the declarer and let the game through. I would simply lead the club three (low, not middle, from a three-card suit). Trumps do not appear to be breaking, and I have decent defense.