THE ACES ON BRIDGE

“A book that is shut is but a block.” -- Thomas Fuller

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In this deal from the Lille 2012 world championships, six diamonds generally came home when it was attempted, but one variation produced a particularly interesting problem for declarer.

Since the play is easy on any other lead (you are forced to run the heart lead to your queen), let’s say West leads a low club. What’s next?

It looks natural to go after trumps, and to protect against a 4-0 trump break, you need to lead toward the diamond king-queen rather than starting with the diamond jack. When East wins and shifts to a heart, you suddenly have a problem. Did you notice that a heart shift was going to jeopardize your entries? You might as well put up the heart queen now -- more in hope than expectation. You won’t get any value out of your queen if you don’t.

When West covers, you take your heart ace and play a trump to the queen. Had trumps split 2-2, you would have been home free, but as it is, you need to unblock spades (don’t you?) before drawing the last trump. By cashing only two spades, all you can afford to take before drawing trumps, you will leave the suit temporarily blocked. But you do have a resource.

After drawing the last trump, you pitch your spade queen on the club king and have unscrambled the blockage. You now have two homes for your heart losers on the spade jack and spade 10.