ACES ON BRIDGE

*Forcing

**Short hearts

Opening Lead: Club seven

On this deal from the 2003 Spingold, Alan Sontag brought home a tricky slam.

While six diamonds could have been defeated on spade ruffs, North-South reached six spades after South found North with 3=1=6=3 distribution.

With dummy having shown short hearts, West opted for a club lead, which Sontag won in hand. He crossed to the spade ace, finding out the bad news, then continued spades, East covering dummy’s eight.

Sontag won and overtook the diamond jack, East taking the diamond ace and returning a heart to the ace. Now Sontag crossed to the club queen and started running the diamonds, throwing a heart on the second round. Thus, he used the diamonds as trump substitutes.

East ruffed in at the first opportunity. After overruffing cheaply, Sontag ruffed a heart back to dummy and continued diamonds. East could either discard all the way and be caught in a trump coup at trick 12, or he could ruff in, whereupon declarer would overruff, draw the last trump and enjoy his clubs.

East had erred in the defense earlier, though. He could have broken the slam by refusing to cover the second spade. Declarer would then be an entry short, needing dummy’s third trump for a heart ruff. The play would continue along similar lines, except that East would discard all the way on the diamonds, leaving himself with jack10-four in trumps. With no more entries to the dummy, declarer would have no way of picking up the spades.

ANSWER: Pass. This is not the time to stretch to rebid your diamonds, with a singleton in partner’s suit. Partner may still be able to compete, but if he does not, it surely is not your hand for more than a part-score. Switch the majors, and I would be far more tempted to compete.

If you would like to contact Bobby Wolff, email him at bobbywolff@mindspring.com