ACES ON BRIDGE

Knowledge may give weight, but accomplishments give luster, and many more people see than weigh.

— Lord Chesterton After North’s Texas transfer response followed by Roman Key-card Blackwood, West knew to go passive on opening lead, so he put a trump on the table. Declarer counted 11 top tricks and saw that if trumps broke, he could arrange an elimination play. He would draw trumps, cash the hearts and play a diamond to the queen; if that lost, West would be endplayed.

South won the lead and drew a second round, realizing his hypothetical elimination play would now not work. So he drew the last trump and was about to go after diamonds when he realized that he might as well cash his hearts first. He took the three top hearts, then led a diamond to the queen.

West won his king but had no heart to lead. Since declarer was marked with the club queen, he could do no better than exit with the diamond jack, hoping his partner would produce the 10. But declarer could win his ace and throw a club on his good diamond 10: He ended up with six trumps, three hearts, two diamonds and a club to make his contract.

Notice that if declarer had failed to cash the hearts, the contract would have failed, since West would then have had a safe exit in hearts. As the play actually went, if West had had the fourth heart to lead after winning his diamond trick, declarer would ruff, then play the diamond ace and ruff a diamond. If the diamond jack had not fallen, he would have taken the club finesse as his last chance.

BID WITH THE ACES South holds: 3 9543 7542 10 9 4 2 West North

1 Dbl.

?

ANSWER: You don’t want to pass and hear partner run to one spade, which he might do with, for example, a 4-3-33 shape; so it seems right to bid either one diamond or one heart. I would start by bidding one diamond, and if the opponents doubled enthusiastically, I’d run to one heart.