ACES ON BRIDGE

“To acquire knowledge, one must study; but to acquire wisdom, one must observe.”

— Marilyn vos Savant

George Jacobs found a very nice play in this deal, nominated for the 2000 IBPA defense of the year award.

Norberto Bocchi reached six diamonds on an unopposed sequence and received a club lead from Jacobs. Bocchi won this in hand and played a spade to the ace. He then ruffed a spade, played a diamond to the ace, ruffed another spade with the diamond 10 and cashed the diamond king-queen. When he led a club to dummy, intending to insert the 10 to create an extra dummy entry to finish ruffing out the spades and cash the rest, Jacobs ruined his plan by inserting the club jack, blocking the suit. Now Bocchi needed the heart finesse, and when it failed, he was set one trick. These plays are always easy in the postmortem, but not at all easy to find at the table!

In the other room, Zia Mahmood also declared six diamonds, but his opponents had intervened with a one-heart overcall and a raise. On the club lead, Zia could place the heart ace on his left — why else would West not lead the suit? He judged that East would not have been so enthusiastic to raise hearts with only three-card support and no high cards of note in the other suits, so it seemed like a sound assumption that East held the spade king. Accordingly, Zia won the club lead with dummy’s 10, unblocked the diamond ace, crossed to the club ace, drew trumps, and then employed the ruffing spade finesse to land the slam, with the club king for re-entry.

ANSWER: A one-heart overcall would not take up any space. You have a decent suit, but even so, you ought to have more in the way of values for this action, or at least another honor in hearts. As it is, a pass is the prudent call. For the record, non-space-consuming overcalls require just a little more than a wing and a prayer; you might be better positioned to act if your hearts and spades were switched.