ACES ON BRIDGE

The maneuver shown in today’s deal, known as an intrafinesse, does not come up all that often. It is an episode in this week’s theme of how to develop an extra trick in a suit missing the queen and jack.

Here, South declared three no-trump after opening a short club. West overcalled a natural two clubs over this, and when North produced a negative double, South introduced his four-card major, then owned up to a club stopper when North asked him for one.

After West kicked off with a low club, declarer won with dummy’s 10. He could see his way to something like two clubs, two spades and four heart tricks, but where was the ninth going to come from?

If he tried to set up a diamond, the defenders would surely win the race to establish clubs first. So the extra trick had to come from spades. In order to achieve his target, South crossed to his heart 10 and led a spade to the eight and 10. East shifted to diamonds, and West could see that declarer would likely establish his ninth winner in that suit if left to his own devices. So he played the ace of clubs, then the queen, as East pitched hearts. That let South score his king, but it set up West’s clubs in the process. However, now declarer cashed the hearts, then took the spade king to drop West’s jack and led dummy’s last spade to his nine. The finesse wasn’t guaranteed to succeed, but declarer was confident that West would have split his honors at trick three if he had begun with Q-J-x of spades.