ACES ON BRIDGE

In the 2018 World Junior Championships, South opened one diamond and rebid three no-trump to show a hand with good (if not necessarily solid) diamonds too strong for a three-diamond rebid. He was unworried about missing a spade game here, as North had not opened a weak two. North had a great hand for diamonds, with a surfeit of controls, so he wended his way to slam after confirming his partner had a heart control.

How do you play six diamonds on the lead of the heart queen? The best line is surely to win the ace and play the club ace. Then overtake the club jack with the king and ruff a club with an intermediate trump. When the club queen falls, declarer can draw trumps ending in dummy and throw his heart on the club 10, encountering trouble only when trumps are 4-0. If the club queen has not fallen, play the spade king and lead the jack to the ace, planning to run the spade 10, pitching a heart if it is not covered. This line has the downside of running into an overruff from a hand with the singleton or doubleton diamond queen. But if South can avoid that, he will make if the club queen falls in two or three rounds, if East has the spade queen in a two-, three- or four-card suit, or if the diamond queen falls in two rounds. That adds up to a 75% line.

About half of the juniors played the diamond slam, with six of the 10 declarers playing on clubs first to bring it home. By contrast, most of the field in three no-trump went down on a heart lead.