ACES ON BRIDGE

In today’s deal, South’s two-heart bid set up a oneround force but was not game-forcing. North had a relatively minimum balanced hand, but he was at the top of his range, even if his spade queen didn’t appear to be pulling its full weight. When he jumped to game, South decided that he would risk being off two club tricks, and rather than give information to the opponents, he simply jumped to slam. When West’s low spade lead went to the queen, king and ace, South could see that his slam was just a matter of taking two club finesses. However, he realized that the auction had significantly reduced the chances of this line succeeding. Accordingly, he decided to increase his chances by means of an endplay. He unblocked the diamond ace, overtook the heart queen with the king and cashed the two top diamonds, pitching spades, then ruffed a diamond to hand with the trump ace. Next, he overtook the heart eight with the nine, ruffed dummy’s spade loser, and had reduced to a five-card ending with four clubs and a trump in hand, while dummy had three clubs and two trumps. Even though West still had a trump left, declarer could lead a club to the 10 to leave East on play, and take the rest. East could return a club, surrendering his side’s second trick in that suit or, if he preferred, he could switch to a spade. South would ruff that, pitching dummy’s losing club. He would then cross to dummy with the club ace to draw the last trump.