ACES ON BRIDGE

In today’s deal, by delaying a finesse till the last minute, declarer can count out the hand and find an alternative, winning line.

Against four spades, the defense leads a heart to the queen, king and ace. South must now try to avoid having to rely on the diamond finesse. East is quite likely to have one of the two top clubs in a relatively short holding, since he has at least six hearts. So declarer leads a trump to dummy, then a low club to the jack and king. The defenders play two more rounds of hearts. Declarer ruffs in dummy, then comes to hand and leads a low club toward the queen. West follows low unconcernedly, and declarer ducks in dummy. When West’s eight holds, he gets out with a third club. Declarer plays low from dummy, trying to ruff out the club ace. (This line works whenever East has fewer than four clubs, including a top honor.) That chance fails, but meanwhile declarer has developed a full count of the hand. East began with two spades, six hearts and exactly four clubs to the ace — declarer can infer the precise layout of the clubs unless West has ducked his ace twice and also avoided an opening club lead when holding the ace-king. Thus, East cannot realistically have more than one diamond. So, there is no point in taking the diamond finesse. Declarer cashes the diamond ace, and the diamond 10 is a sight for sore eyes. Dummy’s diamond nine lets South finesse West for the diamond queen with confidence.