ACES ON BRIDGE

Against your delicate six-heart slam, West leads the spade two, an apparent singleton. Can you find any way to make your contract?

The layout you need to make 12 tricks will require West to have a doubleton rather than a tripleton heart. Win the opening lead with the spade ace, then cash the trump ace and king. Next, play a low spade from dummy.

Since you can expect to encounter good defenders in my problems (if not always in real life), East is likely to duck; so your jack will win the trick. After crossing back to dummy with the trump queen, you ruff a spade. Then, after a diamond to the ace, you concede a trick to East’s spade king. East will no doubt shift to a club, which you will win with the ace. You can then throw dummy’s remaining club on your diamond king and claim the rest of the tricks, since dummy is high. You make four spades plus a ruff, four trumps in dummy, and three winners in the minors, for a total of 12 tricks.

Notice that you could not afford to draw a third round of trumps. If you had done so, East’s playing low on the second round of spades would leave you one entry short of being able to set up and cash the spades. You needed three entries to dummy: one to ruff a spade, one to concede a spade, and the final ruff to reach the winning spades in dummy.

Also, if West starts with three trumps and a singleton spade, then the contract cannot be made against best defense.

ANSWER: Your partner’s two-heart call is best played as natural here, plus a good hand. A one-no-trump call should similarly be natural, with double and two no-trump taking care of hands with high-card and shape respectively, with the other two suits. I would drive this hand to game, planning to cue-bid three clubs, then probably bid three no-trump to offer a choice of games.

bobbywolff@mindspring.com

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