ACES ON BRIDGE

“The serpent, subtlest beast of the field.” — John Milton

As West, see if you can get the better of declarer, looking just at your hand and dummy’s. You lead the unbid suit against three no-trump, for want of anything better to do. Declarer wins with dummy’s ace as your partner drops the jack. Next comes a spade to South’s king.

It might be tempting to win and continue clubs, placing the king-jack doubleton or tripleton with your partner, but declarer would not have much of a two-no-trump bid then, and he would have finessed the club queen at trick one. No, partner’s club jack must be the start of an echo from shortness.

You can infer that declarer has 5-5 in the minors from the offset, and your partner’s spade two implies an odd number, bringing declarer’s shape into complete focus: a 2=1=5=5 pattern. Although the clubs are not running, the diamonds may be, so you cannot afford to duck this trick.

Having won it, you must seek to cash out, and the heart suit will provide the four necessary tricks — as long as you start with the ace, to crash a singleton honor in the South hand. You then continue with your other honor before leading a third round, squashing dummy’s heart 10 beneath partner’s king.

Had partner shown an even number of spades, you would have known declarer to have a heart doubleton and taken your best chance of switching to a low heart, playing partner for king-jack-small. Cashing the ace first would block the suit on that layout.

ANSWER: Partner has not guaranteed much, certainly not club length, but you still ought to compete with three clubs. It would be a shame to let the opponents have it at the two-level, and you can be certain that you have a fit in one of the minors. Your extra shape more than compensates for having no extra high cards.