ACES ON BRIDGE

“Every great mistake has a halfway moment, a split second when it can be recalled and perhaps remedied.”

— Pearl S. Buck

Marty Fleisher found the best line on our next exhibit from the 2019 Gold Coast pairs, but alas, only in the postmortem. Fortunately for him, the defenders had failed to keep the correct cards in the ending, so his mistake will go no further than the two of us, right?

Defending against the slam, West intelligently tried to get herself out of a later endplay by taking the heart ace at trick one. She then shifted to a club to the jack and ace, at which point Fleisher could be relatively confident the diamond king was wrong; otherwise, why the opening lead by a West with a safe club alternative?

Assuming this is so, declarer can maximize his squeeze chances by ruffing in the long-trump hand. Cash the spade ace, ruff a spade, then cross in hearts to hand for another spade ruff. Next, declarer cashes the diamond ace and plays his last heart. West is caught in a diamond-club squeeze.

When this board was played at a second table, West led a low club to trick one against four spades, the six being third from an even number, low from odd. When declarer won and played a trump, West won and broke up the squeeze by returning a club. However, he played back a low club. Should declarer have run this to his bare nine?

Even if this had lost to a falsecard at trick one, it breaks even in just about any other position. The good news for declarer was that East mistakenly pitched a spade on a trump. As a result, West was still squeezed in the ending!