ACES ON BRIDGE

In today’s deal, declarer must combine two common techniques — holdup play and avoidance — to bring home his game.

South’s weak five-carder is not enough reason to upgrade his hand to a one-diamond opening and two-no-trump rebid, despite the plethora of controls. West cautiously rejects overcalling with his 5-3-3-2 shape, often a disappointing distribution on offense, and North decides his balanced hand argues for blasting out three no-trump rather than using Stayman. A simple invitation probably would have sufficed here.

Declarer can see just six top tricks after the spade queen lead, so he should look to garner three more from the diamond suit. He must, however, be wary of the threat posed by the spades (should they break 5-3), so he should duck the opening lead. A rounded-suit switch presents little danger to a declarer holding such strong intermediates in both suits, and defenders rarely shift here even when they should!

South wins the spade continuation and starts on the diamonds. He should do so from his hand, and when West follows with the eight, it is imperative to cover with the nine. To put up the queen would risk leaving West with two entries to set up his spades when he holds ace-jack-eight or ace-10-eight and East unblocks the jack.

East thus gains a surprise trick with the diamond 10, but he cannot clear the spades, so declarer is home.

Note that declarer would be able to pick up the diamonds for three tricks, even if West’s eight happened to be a singleton.