THE ACES ON BRIDGE

“The greatest obstacle to being a hero is the doubt whether one may not be going to prove one’s self a fool.” -- Nathaniel Hawthorne

Sometimes the best stories have a sting in the tail. England international Barry Myers reported this deal, in which he had simultaneously played the hero and the goat.

Myers had experimented at his third turn with two hearts, meaning it as a lead-directing club raise, but he found his partner could not take a joke. Against three hearts, the defenders led a top spade and shifted to trumps. Myers won the queen in hand and knocked out the club ace. The defenders forced dummy with a second spade, and Myers led the club king, ruffed by West, giving declarer the blueprint to the whole deal. The next spade was ruffed in dummy, and now it was up to declarer to find the legitimate route to bring home six of the seven last tricks.

The winning line is to play ace, king and a third diamond, ruffing with the heart jack, as Myers did. Now you play ace and a second trump, endplaying East with his heart eight to lead clubs into dummy’s tenace. If East ruffs in on an earlier diamond, you can instead overruff and draw trump, then concede a spade.

Very nice -- so where’s the catch? As Myers discovered later on, on the third round of spades West had led his jack (squashing his partner’s 10), rather than a low spade. Accordingly, Myers’ remaining spades were now high, and he could simply have ruffed a diamond to hand and drawn trump. His hand would then have been high, and he would have had an overtrick.