ACES ON BRIDGE

Against three no-trump, East takes the first spade with the ace and returns the spade seven. Declarer follows small from hand, and West’s jack captures dummy’s 10. Now West knows he can take two more spades if he can put East in to return a third spade. But East’s play of a high spade at trick two suggests an original threecard holding, so South would still have a spade guard left if West were to lead the suit from the top. East would return a low spade at trick two if he had three spades left. Since West knows South has about a 12-count at minimum, there is room for East to hold one significant card. If East has the club king, he will surely win a trick with that, since declarer cannot come to nine tricks without establishing the club suit. So the question is: Which red suit should West play? The simple answer is that the sight of the diamond ace in dummy means it must be right to play a heart. Even if East has a diamond suit that includes the king, a diamond shift now wouldn’t help — declarer would have

LEAD WITH THE ACES three red-suit winners and six clubs. But as the cards lie, playing a high heart now lets East win and revert to spades, for the defenders to cash out their five winners. Had dummy held the heart ace and diamond king, West would have shifted to a high diamond, using similar reasoning to hope to find East with the diamond ace (or club king).

ANSWER: Do you think your partner was pre-empted out of bidding his suit? Of course you don’t — and neither do I! If he chose not to bid over the redouble, it must be because he wanted to defend, and you have absolutely no reason to disbelieve him. Pass, and I guarantee one side or the other is going to be having an animated post-mortem when the deal is over!