Aces on Bridge

In today’s deal, John Holland (a regular medalist for England in Open and Senior teams events) was declarer at six no-trump, against which West led a heart. Holland optimistically inserted the jack; if that had held and diamonds had broken 3-2, that would have been 12 tricks, and any pedagogical interest in the deal would have vanished. But when East covered the jack with the queen, Holland won his ace.

When diamonds broke, Holland cashed them all, discarding a heart and spade from hand. (Since five tricks are impossible against the 5-0 break, it is right to lead the diamond ace or queen first, in case East has a bare jack or 10. Then a low diamond to hand reveals whether a finesse of the nine is necessary.)

On the run of the diamonds, East discarded two clubs and a heart. When declarer cashed the club king and led to dummy’s queen, East pitched a small spade. Since it now appeared East had begun with four cards in each major, how should declarer continue?

It looked as if declarer would need a successful finesse of the spade queen to bring his trick total to 12. But Holland spotted a small extra chance when he led a low spade from dummy; after East contributed the five, he put in his eight. This play would guard against East holding both the jack and nine, and Holland’s foresight gave him his slam. An alternative would have been to run the spade 10, and if that were covered, later to finesse the eight.