ACES ON BRIDGE

After North stretches to reverse and then shows his spade fragment, you wisely decide to bypass three no-trump. Against four spades, West leads a club to East’s 10. You can see 10 tricks once you knock out the diamond ace; the problem is how to retain control. If you were to grab the club ace and draw trumps, a 4-2 spade split would defeat you. Conversely, if you go after diamonds at once, a capable defender will hold off the first round, take the second and give his partner a ruff. A passive trump shift might then scramble your entries to take the club ruff and draw trumps. So, say you ruff a club at trick two and then play on diamonds. The defenders’ best play is to take a diamond ruff with the long trump holding, then force the dummy in clubs. Dummy would have to ruff with an honor, again leaving you a trick short.

A better move, however, is the counterintuitive one of holding up the club ace to retain control. If East continues clubs, you ruff low in dummy, cash the top spades, force an entry to hand in diamonds, draw trumps and then knock out the diamond ace.

In this scenario, East would have done better to shift passively to a trump at trick two. If he does, you should not ruff a club but should simply play four rounds of spades. Next, lead the diamond 10, followed by the diamond six to dummy’s king (leaving yourself a reentry to hand). Unless East ducks twice, he will grant you an entry to the club ace, so he holds off. A third diamond then endplays him to revive the club ace or build a second heart trick for you.