Aces on bridge

Are you a good partner? When your partner goes down in a viable game contract, how do you tend to react? Say nothing, mutter under something inaudible or unprintable, sympathize or apologize for your aggressive bidding? In today’s deal, North was not sure if he was in a forcing auction but felt he had enough to take a shot at game. He was right in a sense ... When West led the spade six against five clubs, declarer won with dummy’s ace and decided that a simple trump finesse was his best bet. It was not. It is often right to set up a second suit before tackling trumps. Instead of taking the club finesse, declarer should have concentrated on establishing the diamonds for a heart discard. It is best to come to hand by leading the club queen to the ace. (The queen might get covered, or the king might drop!) When it does not, run the diamond seven. East wins with his 10 and switches to hearts, but now declarer can win, play a diamond to the ace and ruff

lead with the aces

a diamond. Then he enters dummy with a spade ruff to discard the losing heart on a winning diamond. This line fails when West holds the guarded club king and a doubleton diamond, and so can overruff the third diamond and cash a heart. But in that case, you would never have made your game More to the point, this play succeeds whenever East holds the club king or West holds three diamonds and the club king.

answer: Everyone has his or her own algorithm as to how to deal with 6-4 hands, and my simple rule is: Always bid the second suit if you can do so economically, unless you hold a dead minimum, the six-carder is strong and the four-carder is a weak minor. This is the case here, so I would bid two diamonds — but not with any great degree of confidence.