ACES ON BRIDGE

In today’s deal, declarer made use of a subtle extra chance to bring home a delicate slam.

As a rebid of three clubs over two spades would be a second negative, North’s two notrump promised some values. When North raised three spades to four, South took a shot at slam and bought an apparently useless dummy on the lead of the diamond queen.

Cover up the East and West cards to see if you can find your best chance here. If West held the trump king, the spade eight might represent an entry to dummy, so after winning his diamond ace, declarer cashed the club ace and was about to lead a low trump toward dummy before reassessing the position.

Would leading the trump queen be better? This would succeed against a singleton trump king or 2-2 trumps. So far so good … declarer was about to lead the spade queen when he went the extra mile for a better plan. Suddenly, he had a flash of inspiration and led the spade seven instead of the queen.

The logic here is that this card would succeed whenever the queen would, but it would also bring home the contract if West held a singleton six in the trump suit. Had West been able to follow low smoothly, declarer would have faced a guess as to whether to overtake. But when West played the six, it let South overtake with dummy’s eight.

If East withheld the spade king, declarer would be in dummy, so East won and returned a heart. Declarer rose with the ace, crossed to dummy with the spade five and took his discard on the master club.

ANSWER: One would normally give preference with this shape, but this hand is so weak that, especially facing partner’s likely club shortness, it is highly unlikely you have a game. It is better to pass, preventing partner from pushing the bidding higher. With the same hand and the heart king instead of the three, you would surely give false preference to two spades here.

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