ACES ON BRIDGE

An act of God was defined as something which no reasonable man could have expected.

What do you think would be the relative fates of four hearts and three notrump here? At the Gold Coast last year in a teams match, one East-West pair pre-empted to two spades, but it didn’t prevent their opponents from finding their way to four hearts by North.

It looks natural for declarer to cash the diamonds to pitch the spade loser, then play on clubs. The defenders can shift to trumps, but then declarer arranges to ruff out the clubs. Alternatively, the defenders can force declarer to ruff in hand — but he can ruff diamonds low and, if necessary, a third round of spades high.

What you cannot do, however, is play three rounds of trumps early — which was what happened at the table. Now the 4-1 club break meant that the defenders could force the North hand and leave declarer short of entries to set up clubs, so he ended with just nine tricks.

In the other room,

Danny Sprung had the delight of playing three no-trump on a spade lead. He ducked the first spade, won the second and cashed his hearts. After the last heart was played, East held three cards in each minor. West came down to three spades, the bare club queen and two diamonds. That was fatal; declarer could play three rounds of diamonds, which endplayed East to lead clubs into dummy’s tenace for the ninth trick.

West’s problem was that he did not know who had the last spade — and I’m not sure how the defenders could have signaled to get this right.

BID WITH THE ACES

South holds:

; Q7

k 10 8 5

l Q4 3 2

A J 10 7

South West North East

1 l Pass

1 NT Pass 2 l Pass

?

ANSWER: It feels right to re-raise to three diamonds. With so little defense to the majors but a good fit for your partner, you should be able to take nine tricks, or the opponents must be able to make a partscore. For the record, the bid of a major here would show a stopper and fit for diamonds, with a maximum.

bobbywolff@mindspring.com