ACES ON BRIDGE

Today’s deal came up in a Common Game duplicate, and while I don’t like South’s concealing of his spades, the par contract was reached anyway.

As West, I selected the club eight. Declarer won with dummy’s king and led a spade to the jack and king. Had the jack held, would leading a spade back to the nine have been the right way to go? I’m not sure, but in any event, after winning the spade king, I played a second club. South now cashed the diamond ace-queen, then took the two top spades. I discarded a heart, and declarer cashed all the winners, pitching his spade on the 13th diamond, then guessed the heart queen wrong for down one.

While alternative plays in spades would have generated three tricks, declarer’s line in that suit was perfectly reasonable. It certainly feels right to unblock the spade queen and diamond ace-queen in case the diamond jack or spade 10 falls doubleton, then to cash the remaining spade honor and run diamonds.

But as the last diamond is cashed, East is known to have started with no more than three hearts, and West at least four. On purely mathematical grounds, declarer should play West for the heart queen; but there is more to it than that. Consider West’s blind opening lead: If West had the heart queen, he would always lead a club. But if he had four or more small hearts, might he not have led a heart instead of a club? So it is even more likely that he has the heart queen.