Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
ACES ON BRIDGE
I may as well say at once that I do not distinguish between inference and deduction. What is called induction appears to me to be either disguised deduction or a mere method of making plausible guesses. — Bertrand Russell
In today’s deal, North-South found their way to the no-trump game. At his second turn, South sensibly elected to emphasize his spades because of his suit-oriented honor structure and his small doubleton in clubs, but still ended up in no-trump when North tried for the nine-trick game rather than raising his partner — a good idea today. But declarer still needed to decide which suit to go after and how to avoid blockages to bring his game home.
West’s lead of the heart queen removed dummy’s only outside entry to the diamonds. With seven sure tricks, a 3-3 spade break would suffice; however, diamonds seemed to offer a sounder chance.
A close examination of the diamond pips showed that even some 4-1 breaks might not present an insuperable problem. South focused on West holding the fourcard suit with East a singleton honor.
Accordingly, at trick two, South cashed dummy’s diamond ace and, when the queen dropped from East, he was careful to play the nine to this trick to keep the suit fluid. Next came a low diamond to South’s eight. If West took this trick, declarer would later finesse dummy’s seven. So West played low to cut declarer off from dummy.
Nicely defended, but it was not quite good enough. South switched horses and played low spades from both hands to make sure he could untangle his winners. With four spade tricks to come when that suit behaved, he was home.
ANSWER:
East has promised at least five cards in each major, so your partner must have short spades. Rather than try a speculative minor-suit lead, you should pave the way for the spade ruff that you hope to give when you gain the lead with the heart king. The spade two is the best lead, making it look like you have the singleton. If the heart ace is on your left, declarer might reject the finesse and suffer an embarrassing ruff.