THE ACES ON BRIDGE

“When a person cannot deceive himself, the chances are against his being able to deceive other people.” -- Mark Twain .....................

In today’s deal, the situation in three no-trump is complicated by South’s desire to keep West off lead. Declarer will have seven top tricks once he has knocked out the heart ace, so he must find two more tricks from somewhere. Fortunately, there are lots of extra chances: the spade finesse, an extra heart trick, and an extra club winner or more. The key, though, is for South to combine his chances in the right order.

Duck the opening lead (East playing the queen) and win the diamond continuation with dummy’s ace. Now play a heart to your queen -- all things being equal, it is best to knock out the opponents’ sure winners first. West takes his ace and continues with diamonds, East showing out.

Since you cannot afford to lose the lead to West, next play a small club to dummy’s jack. East wins the queen and returns a club. When West’s club 10 appears, you now have eight tricks on top: one spade, two hearts, two diamonds and three clubs. It looks as though you still need something nice to happen in one of the major suits. Not so. Provided that East does not have five hearts, you now have a sure line of play for your extra trick.

Take your clubs, cash the heart jack, then play a heart to dummy’s nine. If this holds, the heart king will be your ninth trick. If it loses, East will have nothing left but spades and will have to lead a spade into dummy’s ace-queen.

ANSWER: Since you would pass here with 12-14, a free bid of two no-trump shows a balanced 18-19 now. So it is the right way to describe this hand, unless you play support doubles. If you do, start by doubling to show three-card support, planning to bid on in no-trump over a sign-off from your partner to describe your extra values.