ACES ON BRIDGE/ OPINION

Opening Lead: Diamond seven

Take the West cards for today’s exhibit. Your right-hand opponent opens a short and nebulous one club.You pass and hear a one-diamond response, alerted as showing hearts. South bids two hearts to describe a minimum opener with four in that suit, raised to game by his partner.

A trump lead might solve a guess in the suit for declarer, so you try a diamond instead, a suit declarer does not necessarily have length in. The diamond seven goes to the four, 10 and king, and then declarer advances the spade jack. How would you defend?

There is no spade layout where going in with the ace will cost a trick by force, and surely South would not play this way with the spade king-jack. On the other hand, playing your ace could be vital if declarer wants to steal a trick with a king-queen-jack holding. You therefore take the spade ace, partner dropping the two to show an odd number.

Your next move is to continue diamonds, trying to set up a trick for partner’s queen or at least pave the way for a ruff. After all, you likely need partner to have a trump trick to beat this. Declarer takes the diamond ace and tries to reenter his hand with a heart to cash the spades, but partner is there with the heart ace to cash the diamond queen. You still have a club trick to come, for one down.

That was well defended, but declarer was asleep at the helm. He should have won trick one with the diamond ace, keeping his king as the fast entry to his slow spade winners. This way, he does not need a favorable diamond layout.

ANSWER: Pass. This is the sort of hand where the no-trump partial might be the sensible option. Your major is weak, you have no shape and your side has the balance of power. There could easily be too many losers in a spade partial, not to mention diamond ruffs. If you had less in the way of values, your hand would be of little use in one no-trump, so it might be better to transfer.

BOBBY WOLFF