ACES ON BRIDGE

West leads the diamond queen against four hearts. As East, you encourage with the six, and declarer ducks. Next comes the diamond jack to South’s ace. Now declarer leads a low spade, partner winning with the queen and continuing with the diamond nine to your king. What next?

South is known to have at most one club, so you will not be able to score a club trick. Declarer surely holds the spade ace as well; otherwise, he would have tried a spade to the king in the hope that the ace was onside. Furthermore, partner clearly holds the spade king since declarer did not start spades by cashing the ace-king. Thus, declarer is all but guaranteed to hold the heart queen to make his opening bid.

Consider the defense if you follow the passive route of playing, say, a club. Declarer will be able to ruff a spade high, draw two rounds of trumps ending in hand, and ruff another spade low. He will subsequently ruff a club to hand to draw the final trump and enjoy his long spade.

Perhaps you can counter declarer’s plan.

Lead the fourth diamond to allow your partner to discard a club. If declarer ruffs in his hand, he will lack the entries to establish and cash the 13th spade. Ruffing in dummy would not help, either, since he would still need to ruff two spades, and one of them would be overruffed. Declarer could survive if his hearts were queen-jack-nine-low, by crossruffing, so you need partner to hold either the heart nine or heart jack. Is that too much to ask?

ANSWER: Partner would raise to two notrump with a balanced 18-19, so his jump to three no-trump should show a long spade suit, offering a choice of games. With a spade doubleton and a possible ruffing value, bid four spades. If a balanced hand is not worth a two-no-trump opener, it also cannot drive to game facing a possible 5-count, can it?