ACES ON BRIDGE

By Bobby Wolff

When this deal originally appeared at the Junior Camp in New York, it was published under the heading “Vise is nice” as a tribute to the vise squeeze. On West’s imaginative low diamond lead against three no-trump, South ducked in dummy. Now say East puts in the 10 and returns a spade to the nine, jack and queen. Declarer finesses in clubs and plays the club ace and another club, endplaying East. East’s best bet is to play back a low spade, but declarer wins and plays a heart to the queen and king. East has to concede the ninth trick.

When Bjorn Serling sat East, he won the first diamond with the 10 and returned a diamond, not a spade. Declarer won and led a club to the ace and a club to the queen, a thoughtful play. Serling won that and played back a low diamond.

On the run of the clubs, each defender held his diamond and came down to 3-1 in the majors. Declarer now led the spade king, seeing West’s jack, and Serling ducked. Serling took the next spade and cashed the last diamond. In the two-card ending, he had the heart king and the spade eight, West held the jack-10 of hearts, and declarer had the heart ace doubleton. Which two cards could dummy keep?

If declarer pitched dummy’s last spade, Serling would cash the spade eight. Accordingly, declarer pitched a heart, and East led the heart king, pinning the queen. West therefore won trick 13 with the heart jack. Although declarer could have played East for the bare heart king, he can hardly be blamed for not doing so.