ACES ON BRIDGE

Invention, strictly speaking, is little more than a new combination of those images which have been previously gathered and deposited in the memory; nothing can come of nothing.

— Sir Joshua Reynolds

One of my regular correspondents is Tim Bourke, winner of bridge book of the year in 2104 for The Art of Declarer Play, with co-writer Justin Corfield. Bourke never ceases to impress me with his fertile imagination. Here West leads the spade queen against five clubs; plan the play.

While the diamond ace looks likely to be offside, a simple line would be to play on diamonds, hoping for the diamond queen to be with East; but you can do better. Declarer wins the spade lead in dummy, ruffs a heart, then takes the next six tricks by crossruffing the majors, ruffing the remaining hearts high in hand as West pitches a diamond on the last.

By this point, West, whose bidding has suggested close to invitational values, has turned up with seven points in the majors, so he needs the diamond queen.

Accordingly, in the five-card ending, declarer crosses to dummy in trumps and leads the last heart from dummy, throwing the diamond five as East wins his king. If West discards a diamond, East’s diamond ace takes trick 11, but the diamond king and club ace represent the last two tricks. If West ruffs his partner’s winner and leads a diamond, then playing low is obvious. This forces the ace, and declarer claims the rest.

If West had turned up with better hearts earlier, so that East appeared to have both top diamonds, then instead of ruffing out the hearts, declarer would need to switch tack by leading a diamond from dummy and playing to set up a diamond. ANSWER: In auctions of this sort, your partner’s bid of the opponent’s suit on the second round should be natural. I admit that the action is somewhat unexpected, but your partner could be 5-5 in spades and diamonds, with your RHO holding five or six clubs and four hearts. While you do have fitting honors, you don’t have quite enough to raise to three diamonds, so pass.