THE ACES ON BRIDGE

“No pressure, no diamonds.” -Thomas Carlyle

Today’s hand is from the semifinals of the Junior (Under 25) Championship at the 2010 World Bridge Series. Here, Israel faced USA-1, and although Israel went on to win the final, USA-1 showed considerable verve in the bidding, reaching six hearts in an auction that consisted of 13 calls, whereas Israel did not progress beyond game. I have provided a natural sequence to get to slam here.

Since East for Israel had doubled North’s five-spade response to Roman Key-Card Blackwood, West led a spade. Jason Chiu, for USA-1, showed that he could handle the cards as well as he could bid them. He ducked the spade lead in dummy, and East, winning with the queen, returned a trump.

Chiu proceeded to play out all his trumps, and on the last one West naturally came down to the guarded diamond king and three clubs, while dummy kept two spades and three clubs. East had to keep both his clubs to protect his partner from a club finesse on the second round of the suit, and since he had sole control of the spade suit, was thus forced down to only one diamond.

Now came a spade to the ace, forcing a diamond from West, who was obliged to keep three clubs because of the threat in dummy. That allowed Chiu to take the ace and king of clubs, then the diamond ace, with the diamond four winning trick 13.

ANSWER: The simplest call is sometimes the best. Jump to three no-trump to show 13-15 points in a balanced hand, since a jump to two notrump should be reserved for invitational balanced hands, with about an 11-count.