ACES ON BRIDGE

South decided to play for penalties against one heart, but West introduced his spades. North might have competed with a call of two clubs, but he was not enthusiastic about his wasted major-suit honors. However, South had enough to balance into clubs, and when West repeated his spades, North produced a strong raise, after which South could not reasonably stay out of game. If West had led the spade ace and given his partner a ruff, declarer would have gone down, but the heart opening lead seemed more obvious. When dummy won the first trick with the heart queen, South took a little time before making the obvious move of playing on trump.

West’s double could have been based simply on a diamond stack, but what if he had a singleton spade? It could cost virtually nothing to take precautions. Accordingly, declarer cashed the diamond ace (since surely nobody could have a diamond void) and ruffed a diamond to get to his hand. Then he led the heart ace, planning to discard a spade from dummy. West sensibly ruffed in, and dummy had to overruff. South returned to his hand again by ruffing a diamond and led the heart king. West could not trump this, so dummy was able to discard a spade. Now nothing could set the contract. If declarer had carelessly led trumps at the second trick, East would have put up the club ace, led to the spade ace, and then ruffed a spade to defeat the game.