ACES ON BRIDGE

Great Britain is a republic with a hereditary president, while the United States is a monarchy with an elective king.

— Knoxville Journal

In today’s deal, when South accepted his partner’s invitation, West led the club jack against four hearts. East overtook this with the ace and returned the club three, with West’s nine winning the trick. After cashing the club king, West continued with the club 10, and East discarded a second diamond as declarer ruffed in.

Declarer now needed to locate the trump queen. If he chose to play West for that card, he would probably need to make four tricks in spades, too. Since that seemed to require too much good luck, declarer decided to play East for the critical queen.

Accordingly, declarer cashed the top spades, then ruffed a spade. After taking the diamond ace and ruffing a diamond low, declarer ruffed a second spade in hand, reducing himself to the ace and jack of hearts plus a diamond. Now, after trumping his remaining diamond with dummy’s king, declarer led a low trump and covered East’s seven with the jack. When that held, declarer had 10 tricks: two spades, five trumps, a diamond and two diamond ruffs.

Notice that if declarer had decided to play the diamond ace and ruff a diamond before playing on spades, he would have had to lead dummy’s low trump next and finesse against East’s queen. Then declarer would cash the spade king and ace and ruff a spade, reducing himself to the ace-jack of hearts and a diamond — the same position as above.

ANSWER: Does it seem outrageous to bid a second time with a 10-count, including a singleton queen? I don’t think so. Partner is marked with moderate values, and just because he doesn’t fit spades doesn’t mean you can’t make a part-score somewhere or push the opponents up a level.