ACES ON BRIDGE

“Of all human follies there’s none could be greater Than trying to render our fellow-men better.”

— Moliere

The Souths who showed their second suit in an online ACBL Speedball reached the good spade game, while those who rebid two spades came to a screeching halt there.

Say West leads a top heart against four spades and then shifts to the diamond 10 to East’s king. Back comes the heart queen, ruffed. How should declarer tackle trumps?

In isolation, declarer does best to cross to the diamond ace and lead the spade 10 from dummy, hoping to pin West’s singleton nine or seven. He can take East’s honor, cross back to dummy and lead a further spade, inserting the eight if East plays small. Advancing the spade 10 might also convince East to cover from honor-nine-seven-four.

However, if declarer runs the spade 10, West might win and arrange an uppercut with a third heart lead, assuming

East can ruff in from an original doubleton. Perhaps declarer’s best play is to lead the spade 10 and go up with the ace if East does not cover. That fails on today’s layout if East plays low smoothly. So, maybe declarer should win the diamond shift with the ace at trick two. He can then ride the spade 10 without fear of an uppercut.

This is not entirely safe: If East covers the spade 10, declarer will have to cross to the club jack to lead a second spade. West might win the second spade and be able to give his partner a club ruff. Even so, the risk of this happening seems small to me — smaller than the need to protect against losing two trump tricks.

ANSWER: Bid four spades. This is a risk that must be taken. You cannot expect partner to act if you pass, so it is now or never. Most likely, four spades will be the wrong call only when both four hearts and four spades are going down. The upsides far outweigh the possible dangers, and faint heart never won fair lady.