ACES ON BRIDGE

Here is a challenging hand from the 2023 Transnationals, in the all-English round-of-32 encounter between Knottenbelt and Lawrenzo.

When Andrew Robson declared four spades as North, he covered the heart jack lead with dummy’s queen, took the next heart and led a spade from dummy. Alas for the defense, West inserted the eight unnecessarily, and now the game was made by picking trumps up for one loser.

In the other room, Ben Norton declared four spades from the South chair after a transfer auction. Oliver Lawrence led a passive club, and declarer led a diamond next. West climbed in with the diamond ace and returned a diamond to dummy’s king.

Next came the spade ace, felling East’s queen. A diamond ruff then revealed the 3-3 split. What now? If trumps were 3-2, all declarer had to do was draw a second round of trumps. However, East’s spade queen was ominous. Norton carefully took the club queen and ruffed a club, West pitching a heart. If declarer took the spade king now, he would lose the fifth diamond in dummy.

Instead, Norton ran dummy’s diamonds, preserving the spade king as a reentry. If West ruffed, he would have to either return a trump into the tenace or open the hearts. Even the spade jack exit would not work, because declarer could win and play a fifth diamond, and West would endplay himself once more if he ruffed that. If West discarded on the fourth diamond, a fifth round would put him through the wringer again.

ANSWER: Wild horses could not stop me from opening three clubs. The suit is internally strong enough to withstand being penalized, and the outside queens and jacks might prove useful on defense — declarer will finesse through partner, not me. Indeed, if you wanted to try to convince me to open four clubs in third seat, I would not need much persuading.