Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
ACES ON BRIDGE
“What is called a sincere work is one that is endowed with enough strength to give reality to an illusion.”
— Max Jacob
This hand from a teams match poses the sort of technical play problem that you might find in a book, but it is a real-life example.
After South showed an excellent hand with spades, North showed a second negative, then raised the non-forcing three-spade call to game. Declarer won the diamond jack lead and could see four potential losers — a trump, two hearts and a club. The spade queen might come down, but if it didn’t, a favorable heart layout would not suffice. On conventional play, South would have no entries to dummy to lead hearts even once, let alone the two times he would need for a double finesse.
Declarer decided to go all-out for a second heart trick, giving up on a favorable spade lie. At trick two, he advanced the spade nine from hand. This entry-generating gambit would allow declarer to finesse twice in hearts whenever spades were 3-1 at worst.
A surprised East scored his spade queen and shifted to a club, West capturing the jack and returning the suit. Declarer won, crossed to dummy in trump and took the first heart finesse. West won, and back came a club. All that was left was to enter dummy in spades and repeat the heart finesse.
It is difficult to calculate the odds at the table precisely, but the 75% odds of finding one heart honor onside, slightly negated by the chance of a defensive club ruff, must be better than playing for the drop in spades, which is no better than a 50% shot.
ANSWER: Double. You have far too much for a simple overcall, and four spades would not show this hand. The best call is to double, intending to bid spades later. If your partner passes for penalty, you will be delighted; if he bids three hearts, you should probably bid four spades.