ACES ON BRIDGE

This week’s deals focus on preventing the defenders from setting up their long suits in no-trump. Today, North drives to game facing a strong no-trump after checking for a major-suit fit. East does well not to overcall two spades — he might be set 500 there.

West leads the club four, and declarer calls for dummy’s jack in case West has underled the king-queen. When East covers, declarer holds up his ace until the third round, trying to cut defensive communications. He pitches a spade from dummy on the third round.

Declarer needs eight tricks from the other suits, so he must either bring the diamonds in or find hearts 3-3 and establish a spade trick, all without letting West on play.

Declarer tests diamonds with the ace and king, ready to unblock the eight and

10 from dummy if West holds the singleton nine.

No, it is East who shows out, throwing a spade.

Now declarer turns to hearts, and when they divide, he knows he has a fair chance that West can be kept off play, since that player has just a singleton spade.

Declarer calls for a low spade from dummy. As hoped, East did indeed start with the spade ace-king, so he has no way to reach his partner. Either the spade queen wins, or, if East comes up with the king, the spade jack will eventually represent declarer’s ninth trick.

Without the early move of ducking the first two tricks, declarer would have failed, with East-West retaining communications in clubs. ANSWER: Lead the club 10. While anything could be right, including the all-out attack of the spade king, it is best to go passive in the long run. Keep the ball in play with a club. It could be that declarer is destined to go down on normal passive defense, in which case you do not want to gamble on an active lead. Try to beat the contract later, not let it through now.

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