THE ACES ON BRIDGE

“Worm, be with me. This is my hard time” -- Theodore Roethke .....................

What would you say declarer’s chances of making 11 tricks are in today’s deal? You appear to have a spade loser and maybe two trumps as well. If you fancy your chances, let’s up the ante a little: you are playing six hearts, not five, and the defenders lead the spade king to dummy’s ace. You lead a low heart to your king, finding the extremely bad news. Rather than give up, you decide to play on, cashing your side-suit winners, just to see what happens.

You try to take all four of your club winners, pitching spades from the board, and fortunately, East has to follow suit to all of them. Next come the three top diamonds, and again both defenders follow suit dutifully. You have reduced to a four-card ending with three trumps and a losing spade in each hand.

Next comes the spade loser. West tries to win the trick, but to his disgust, East has to ruff his partner’s winner. In the three-card ending, East is reduced to the J-10-7 of hearts. Since a low heart play would be immediately fatal, East must exit with a top heart. Declarer wins in dummy and runs the heart nine, winning the last two tricks. Contract made!