ACES ON BRIDGE

“No man but a blockhead ever wrote, except for money.”

— Samuel Johnson

A lot of work is put into unblocking your own suits, whether it be as declarer or defender, but blocking the opponents’ suits can be just as rewarding (and even more aggravating to them).

In this deal, West found himself on lead against three no-trump. He might have led the spade six to preserve his intermediates in case East had honor-doubleton and dummy had four in that suit. Instead, he chose the normal-looking spade 10 from his internal sequence to potentially silence the jack in dummy.

Declarer could see that his best approach would be to go after clubs. It would seem natural to play low from dummy in case West had underled the spade king-queen, but since the spade 10 lead promised the nine, declarer logically decided that West would have led an honor from king-queen10-nine.

If the spade honors were split, with East holding a doubleton honor, that defender could win and return the suit, establishing the spades for West to cash when on lead in clubs.

Declarer therefore called for the spade ace, trying to block the suit for the defense. East might have unblocked the spade king, but it would have made no difference as the cards lie. Declarer finessed in clubs, knocking out West’s entry while the spades were still blocked. He then repeated the club finesse for 11 tricks.

If West had led from length, the chosen line would have lost out where another line would have succeeded only if East had king-queen-fourth in spades and neither club honor.

ANSWER: Respond one heart. Raising clubs can wait, but finding a heart fit cannot. Partner might have only three clubs, after all. With a much weaker hand, where the aim was to obstruct the opponents, you might reasonably raise to three clubs preemptively, but certainly not here.