THE ACES ON BRIDGE

“Civility costs nothing and buys everything.” -- Lady Mary Wortley Montagu

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One of the stronger bridge players in the country for the last 30 years has been Eddie Wold. He is currently fourth on the ACBL’s list of all-time masterpoint winners, with more than 50,000 masterpoints, and he has won all the major U.S. titles at least once.

In today’s deal, he fooled declarer on a sequence where North had transferred into spades, then offered the choice of games.

Four spades looked comfortable enough, at first glance. The opening lead was the heart king, and declarer won to take the diamond finesse. Wold ducked his diamond king smoothly, then ducked again when a spade was led from dummy.

Declarer won the spade king, cashed the club ace, and ruffed a club to lead another spade. Wold won the spade ace and led a heart for dummy to ruff. Declarer now picked up the last trump with his spade queen, denuding everyone of trumps. He then confidently cashed the club king and led a diamond, finessing the jack when West followed low. Only now did Wold produce the diamond king, and East-West took the rest of the tricks with the club queen and two good hearts for plus 200.

Should declarer have done anything different? I hardly think so, but had Wold taken the first diamond, declarer would surely have brought home 10 tricks, either by finessing the spade 10 at once, or by ruffing hearts to dummy twice to play spades toward his hand.

ANSWER: Once your partner passes one heart, you have no reason to assume that your side can make game. (North rates to have 10-13 points and three hearts or so.) You should simply bid one no-trump now, and let partner pass or correct to whatever strain he considers appropriate.