ACES ON BRIDGE

In today’s deal, West leads a third-and-fifth club four against four hearts. As declarer, you duck in dummy, East winning the club king and returning the two to your queen.You lead a low trump next, West grabbing the trick with the ace before leading the club 10 for his partner to ruff. Back comes a spade. How should you continue?

You could finesse the spade jack. If that held, you would play to ruff a spade in hand at once.You would now go down only if East had been dealt four trumps and two diamonds. The alternative is to rise with the spade ace immediately and play for diamonds to provide two discards.

However, West’s club 10 is the clue that should light the way. That was a suit-preference signal, flagging a spade shift. He surely has the spade king. As supporting evidence, East would scarcely lead away from the king after seeing the unsupported queen in dummy.

So you should rise with the spade ace and play a heart to the king, drawing the remaining trumps. You then cash the diamond king and play a diamond to the … ace. (Finessing the diamond jack would be necessary if East had queen-fourth, but West might have led a doubleton diamond in preference to five small clubs; holding the heart ace for control, he would angle for a third-round ruff.)

After taking the diamond ace, you ruff a diamond to bring down the queen, and the heart queen remains as the reentry to the long diamonds. Both Justin Hackett and Janet de Botton found the winning line of play in last year’s Premier League.

ANSWER: If you play two clubs as weak, you could do that here, but if it is inverted, showing invitational or better values, you have too little. (Maybe the club jack instead of the four would suffice?) A preemptive jump to three clubs would place you in the wrong part-score or miss game far too often. I would respond one notrump, which at least implies some club length. You can always compete in clubs if necessary.