ACES ON BRIDGE

That wild-goose chase of yours is going to lay an egg. — Lou Costello in The Wistful Widow of Wagon Gap

Today’s deal came up at the second IOC Grand Prix, held in the Olympic Museum in Lausanne, Switzerland. The event was set up to try to help make the case for bridge as an Olympic sport. There appear to be two inescapable losers outside the trump suit in South’s fourheart contract, suggesting that his chances of success are slim indeed. But though the contract went down each time it was played, perhaps declarer could have found a way home. West would typically lead his partner’s suit against four hearts. When dummy plays low, East wins the spade 10 and shifts to a club. When South wins and plays a heart to the ace, dropping the king, there is no obvious reason to treat this as a false card; so the prospect of two trump losers is clearly threatening. For South to have a chance of success, West needs to hold at least three clubs, but declarer might as well go after diamonds at once. The defenders are likely to duck the ace, win the second diamond and play a second club. Declarer wins in dummy, discards a club on the diamond queen, ruffs a spade in hand, crosses to a third club and ruffs dummy’s last spade in hand. Ten tricks have been played; one in hearts and three in each of the other suits. When South leads his last club, West is helpless. If he ruffs high, he will be endplayed to lead a trump into declarer’s tenace. If he ruffs low, dummy overruffs with the five and loses just one further trump trick.

ANSWER: This hand is not really worth a drive to game. The choice is whether to cue-bid two clubs en route to two no-trump, or just to jump directly to two no-trump. I prefer the latter route, since the first sequence might suggest a four-card major. I only want to play a major if my partner can introduce it voluntarily, suggesting a five-card suit.