tHe aces on BriDge

“Pressure is something you feel when you don’t know what the heck you’re doing.” -- Peyton Manning .....................

Against Franck Multon’s six-heart contract in last summer’s European championships, West found the best lead -- the club seven to East’s queen. After a trump shift, how do you fancy your chances?

Multon drew trumps, West pitching spades, then played a fourth heart, and East had to discard either a spade or a diamond. He chose a spade. Declarer now cashed the club ace, then played the spade ace and ruffed a spade. The last two hearts now squeezed West. On the final heart, to keep his spade guard, West had to come down to two diamonds. Dummy’s spade 10 went away, and now East was squeezed in the minors. If he keeps the club guard, the diamond eight makes the last trick.

If East had thrown a diamond on the fourth heart, it would have obliged West, for the time being, to keep all four diamonds. On the fifth heart, West throws a club and dummy a spade. East can pitch a spade now, but declarer continues with a club to the ace (West pitching a spade), and follows with three rounds of diamonds, ruffing in hand. Now the last heart is cashed and West must come down to a singleton spade to keep his diamond guard. Away goes dummy’s diamond, and now East is caught in a black-suit squeeze.

Yes, if East switches to either a spade or a diamond at trick two, careful defense thereafter defeats the slam, but that does not detract from South’s play.

ANSWER: This may not be a popular view, but I’m very tempted to respond two diamonds rather than two clubs. The logic is that spades are our likely best trump fit for game. But at the slam level, we might be much keener to find a 4-4 diamond fit than a 4-4 club fit. With a weak club fit, we might find we had located a slam we cannot make.