ACES ON BRIDGE

Today’s deal from the Chennai, India, World Championships last year came from the match between USA-1 and Brazil. Nick Nickell and Ralph Katz made four hearts with an overtrick in the other room when North produced one try for slam and respected his partner’s sign-off. However, the Brazilians constructed a slam-bang auction when North closed his eyes and drove to slam. Was it a sensible idea to be aggressive? Well, slam had the merit of having play, even if not good play. As it transpired, it was critical to opt to play spades, not hearts, because that allowed the delay of the guess as to how declarer, Roberto Brum, was supposed to negotiate the heart suit. The slam needs the finesse of the heart king, but once it wins, there is a guess as to how to handle the second round of the suit. West led a club to the ace, and East returned the suit. Declarer drew four rounds of trumps, advanced the heart jack and was happy to find the king onside. Now how do the odds work out? When they say “eight ever, nine never,” they mean that if all things are equal, the finesse is a fraction worse in this position. But all things were not equal here. Once the 4-1 spade break came to light, the odds tilted to West being short in hearts, so at the next trick, declarer finessed the spade nine and collected 11 IMPs instead of losing that number.