ACES ON BRIDGE

A regular reader of this column is Jacques Guertin, formerly of Canada, but now a resident of California. He asked me how to solve a specific defensive problem, but to properly address it for my readers, I will have to run two deals that appear very similar at first glance. Let’s look at the possibly simpler of the two examples and postulate that West leads the spade six against three no-trump. Declarer wins the queen as East follows with his lowest spade, discouraging and specifically denying possession of the jack (as well as the ace and king, of course). Now declarer plays the club king, West giving count with the two. When dummy has no entries, West must let East know how many clubs he has, so that East will hold his ace until the right moment. When, as here, West gives count at his first turn, he must use his second card as suit preference. So when he follows with the club nine (clearly the higher of his remaining clubs) on the second round of clubs, East knows to continue with spades to try to run that suit on defense rather than shifting to diamonds. Having raised the issue of signaling on defense, it seems like a good moment to discuss the Smith Echo, a defensive signal against no-trump. As we shall see tomorrow, the defenders may be able to signal like or dislike about the opening lead by how they follow declarer’s lead. Specifically, the opening leader can suggest a shift, and third hand can encourage the opening lead. More on this tomorrow.