ACES ON BRIDGE

A computer once beat me at chess, but it was no match for me at kick-boxing.

— Emo Philips When West leads the club four against four hearts, South should count his losers. There is some danger of losing one trick in each suit; however, South may be able to avoid the loss of a diamond by means of a successful finesse. If the club finesse should lose, South’s club jack will be good for the third trick in that suit.

At trick one, declarer finesses dummy’s club queen. East wins with the king and shifts to the heart jack, which South wins with the ace. South plans to ruff his losing spades in the dummy, so he leaves trumps alone. One of the best apothegms in bridge is: “If you want to take ruffs, don’t draw trumps!”

Instead, declarer leads a club to dummy’s ace and comes back to his hand

with the spade ace to try the losing diamond finesse of the queen.

When East returns the heart 10, South wins with the king. Declarer leaves the master trump outstanding, since he needs to trump both of his losing spades in dummy.

Instead, South cashes the club jack, discarding a losing spade from the dummy. South can now cash the spade king and ruff a low spade in dummy. He then plays dummy’s diamond ace and ruffs a diamond to get back to his own hand.

As it happens, West overruffs, but whatever he does next, declarer has the rest of the tricks. If West had not overruffed, South would be in position to ruff his last spade with dummy’s last trump.

ANSWER: Your partner has chosen not to compete any further, despite apparently having a singleton heart. You would therefore guess that either he has a poor hand or the opponents are in a 4-3 fit. Since you have four trumps on defense and bad spades in a minimum hand, pass now and hope to beat the final contract.