ACES ON BRIDGE

I get by with a little help from my friends. — Lennon and McCartney

The Cavendish Teams offered up this problem for me 20 years or so ago. I was South, partnered by my old friend Seymon Deutsch. Seymon might have done too much here, but he did at least leave me in a playable spot and provide me with a good story.

In three no-trump, I received a club lead to dummy’s six and East’s eight. I won this in hand to advance the spade jack, which I was pleased to see covered by West. I won dummy’s ace, and returned a spade to the 10 and West’s king. The defense exited passively in spades.

It wasn’t clear what to do next, but I tried a club to the 10 and East’s jack, and East now shifted to hearts, letting me take West’s 10 with dummy’s king. (Yes, it would have been better to win the ace and exit in hearts.) This let me take the club ace, and now a fourth club compelled both defenders to pitch diamonds. Next, I crossed to my hand on the last round of spades.

At this point, West was able to come down to two hearts and the doubleton diamond king, but what could East do? If he also reduced to two hearts and two diamonds, I would exit with a heart and would score two diamond tricks in the endgame, one way or another. So East correctly bared his diamond jack. But that let me lead the diamond queen out of my hand to pin his jack and collect the two diamond tricks I needed to make my contract. South

1 NT

2

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ANSWER: This sequence shows game-forcing values and clubs, typically with four hearts. Your controls are so excellent that I would bypass three no-trump and raise to four clubs, treating this hand as a maximum because of the aces. Let partner take the reins from here on in.