ACES ON BRIDGE

In today’s deal, from a championship match between Denmark and Iceland, the Danes found six hearts and cashed out for 12 tricks. But the deal offered more interesting play in the other room after a complex strong-club auction had led to a grand slam. (The two-spade response showed any 4-4-4-1 pattern, two no-trump asked the shortness, and the fourheart call showed six controls in aces and kings.)

When there are 12 tricks, there are often 13 — and that might have been the case here when West led a heart rather than a killing low club or a truly imaginative diamond queen. Declarer started by rattling off six of his seven hearts, on which dummy discarded three clubs, a diamond and one spade. It was now up to West, Lars Blakset, to create an alternative reality if he wanted to defeat the slam. He chose to discard two clubs, blanking his king, then a spade, and finally a diamond. When South led his last heart, West pitched a second diamond. This successfully created the impression in declarer’s mind that West was giving up his diamond stopper. Accordingly, on the last heart, declarer pitched a spade from dummy, a fatal mistake.

If South had thrown the last low diamond from dummy on the heart, then cashed the diamond ace and king, East would have been squeezed in the black suits. But with the spade menace gone from dummy, 13 tricks were no longer possible. One down, and team Denmark had a big swing when it might have been forced out.