ACES ON BRIDGE

Sitting West, you lead the club king, ace and four. South ruffs the third round of the suit, then leads a diamond to dummy and a spade to the king and your ace. What next?

It does not matter what you do next.You have already let the contract through! Say you switch to a diamond. Declarer wins in dummy, leads a spade to the jack and queen, then draws two rounds of trumps and plays to ruff the fourth spade in dummy. Since your partner is out of trumps, he can do nothing to stop this plan from succeeding, but you could have prevented it. The key to the deal is to duck the first spade, a play consistent with this week’s theme of the holdup.

The strength and general distribution of declarer’s hand are clearly marked by the bidding and early play. He must surely have the spade kingqueen, so winning the first spade cannot generate an extra trick for your side.

However, holding up the spade ace means that declarer now has the unpleasant quandary of how many rounds of trumps to draw before continuing the attack on spades. If none, you will win the spade ace on the second round and give partner a ruff with his heart 10. If South takes two rounds of trumps, exhausting partner of hearts, you will win the spade ace and play a third trump, leaving declarer with an inevitable spade loser. By winning the spade ace on the first round, you give declarer control rather than retaining it for yourself.

“Three o’clock is always too late or too early for anything you want to do.” — Jean-Paul Sartre

BID WITH THE ACES

ANSWER: Partner has denied spades, so there is little upside to bidding them. Two spades would be natural here, but it may suggest more shape than this. Accordingly, a raise to two no-trump seems to be in order. Partner has length in the minors, so you need not be overly concerned about possible weaknesses there in your own hand.

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