ACES ON BRIDGE

Martin, if dirt were trumps, what hands would you hold!

— Charles Lamb All this week’s deals were played in the 2002 World Championships in Montreal, and today’s hand determined a winner in the McConnell Cup quarterfinals.

In the match between Netherlands and England, the Dutch bid to a comfortable three no-trump, but Nicola Smith and Heather Dhondy played the reasonable six diamonds. There you have two spade tricks via the ruffing finesse, two clubs, two hearts, four trumps and a ruff in dummy — that makes 11, so you need to set up an additional black-suit winner or produce a rabbit out of a hat.

Specifically, a low club lead forces declarer to draw trumps for fear of conceding a ruff, which takes a critical entry from dummy. However, West led a spade, and declarer could now make by taking the ace and ruffing a spade. Dhondy won the spade ace and played the club king and another club.

When Marijke van der Pas

(East) discarded, Dhondy won and drew two rounds of trumps ending in dummy. Now she advanced the spade queen, covered, ruffed and overruffed by Bep Vriend (West), who carefully exited with the club jack, ruffed in dummy.

Dhondy ruffed a spade back to hand to lead a low heart, intending to finesse the jack and ruff out the spades, but Vriend thwarted her by putting in the queen! Now declarer only had one entry to dummy in hearts and could no longer set up the spades, so six diamonds had to go down one. There was a 24-IMP turnover on the board, and Vriend went on to win the match, but by just 21 IMPs. ANSWER: Passivity is the name of the game against no-trump slams when you expect the opponents to be balanced. Partner cannot have very much, so you lack both the material and the time to set up quick tricks. Your safest choice is a diamond, the suit in which you do not hold an honor. Whether to lead high or low is a matter of personal preference.

If you would like to contact Bobby Wolff, email him at

bobbywolff@mindspring.com