DO YOU TURN LEFT OR RIGHT?

Usually, when you come to a road junction, you know whether to turn left or right. Your GPS will be repeatedly telling you. Also, if you disobey the GPS, you will be told how to rectify your error.

At the bridge table, sometimes GPS won’t help, because the way you will go in one suit may be decided by what happens in another suit. In today’s deal, South pushed aggressively into six spades. What should he have done after West led a heart?

When North rebid one notrump, showing a balanced 1214 points, South used the Gerber ace-asking convention.

If you are going to bid up, you have to play well or get lucky — or both.

Here, South had a possible club loser, but perhaps the finesse would work. He also had two or three possible spade losers — he needed some luck there, but how much?

There was more than one way to play the trump suit, depending upon how many losers could be tolerated. Before touching that suit, declarer needed to know about clubs. So, he took the first trick on the board and immediately played a club to his queen.

If the finesse had lost, South could not have afforded a trump loser. He would have hoped that East held exactly king-doubleton.

Here, though, the club finesse won. Now declarer could afford one trump loser, but not two. So, he cashed the spade ace. When the king dropped, South claimed. But if he had not seen the king, he would have returned to the board and played a trump toward his queen.

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