ACES ON BRIDGE

“It is from weakness that people reach for dictators and concentrated government power. Only the strong can be free. And only the productive can be strong.”

— Wendell Willkie

As South, you aggressively preempt to the maximum by opening five diamonds. Your defensive prospects against a major-suit contract are fair, but you would not want to sell out to a four-level game with a semisolid eight-card suit, so you might as well bid it directly. In fact, it is your partner who has the big hand this time, and he raises to slam.

Fortunately for you, West leads his shorter side suit, and East wins with the spade ace and returns the suit.You have 11 tricks on top and finesse positions in each rounded suit. How might you decide whether to take the straight finesse in hearts or the ruffing finesse in clubs?

Both are reasonable chances, but you can try to combine them by ruffing clubs first. If the club king drops, you are home free. If not, fall back on the heart finesse. This is better than cashing the heart ace before trying the ruffing finesse, as not only is the heart king unlikely to drop in one round, but the heart ace may be needed as a late entry to dummy.

Since entries to the table are at a premium, you should ruff your own spade winner. You continue with the club ace and a club ruffed with the nine. When that stands up, you cross to the diamond ace for another club lead. The king turns up, and now you can afford to ruff high. All that remains is to draw trumps and cross to the heart ace to pitch your third heart on a club winner. Had the club king not emerged, you would try the heart finesse as the last resort.

LEAD WITH THE ACES

ANSWER: Lead the diamond 10. It is unlikely that you have many heart tricks coming, so you should try to make something of your meager assets by angling for a third-round diamond ruff. If nothing else, this ought to be safer than a club lead.The auction does not suggest that an active defense is strongly called for.