ACES ON BRIDGE

“No one I met at this time … failed to assure me that a man who is hit through the neck and survives it is the luckiest creature alive. I could not help thinking that it would be even luckier not to be hit at all.”

— George Orwell

In four spades, declarer took the club queen lead with the ace and aimed to ruff a diamond in dummy. He saw that there was a slight edge in favor of finessing East for the spade queen. He could run the spade jack through West, then finesse the spade nine, but that would lose to a singleton queen. Meanwhile, cashing the spade king first would fail against queen-fourth with West, as declarer would still need to ruff a diamond on the table.

But declarer could pick up both four small and queen-fourth in trumps on his right by playing to the spade ace, then finessing against East. He duly did so, and his second-round finesse won. Then he ruffed a diamond in dummy to repeat the trump finesse for

10 tricks. Do you agree with declarer’s line of play?

South failed to appreciate the power of dummy’s diamonds; he would have done better to focus on finessing in that suit. Whether it won or lost, he could hope to throw a club on the third diamond, then ruff a club in dummy.

The best line is to win the club ace, then run the spade jack. If it wins, declarer can play spades for no loser while ruffing a minor-suit loser on the table. If East wins, declarer has the entries to dummy to take the diamond finesse, then eventually pitch a club on the diamonds and ruff the third club high in dummy. If South goes to dummy’s spade ace for a losing diamond finesse at trick three, he risks conceding an overruff in clubs even if the spade queen can be finessed.

ANSWER: You have just enough to compete to three hearts. This does not promise much more than a simple raise from one to two, but it is still wide-ranging, of course. The singleton spade makes action sensible, as the hand with the shortage tends to take the aggressive position. In competition with a minimum, beware of bidding on hands with bad trumps, or that have defense against the opponents’ suit.