THE ACES ON BRIDGE

“It doesn’t matter if you’re born in a duck yard, so long as you are hatched from a swan’s egg!” -- Hans Christian Andersen .....................

Mark Itabashi and Ross Grabel won the von Zedtwitz Life Master Pairs in Atlanta last summer. The following deal helped their cause.

If the defenders lead a heart against four spades, declarer wins, tests trumps, then plays on clubs. Whatever the defenders do, he can arrange to set up clubs and neutralize West’s trumps to make 10 tricks.

However, Itabashi actually led the diamond 10 to the ace. Declarer thought it would be smooth sailing until he ran into an unexpected surprise middeal. He played two rounds of trumps, revealing the annoying 4-1 split, and now had to go after clubs. Declarer played a club to the 10, which held the trick. Believing that there were 11 easy tricks available at this point, declarer crossed to another trump in dummy and played a club to the nine. Itabashi now produced the queen and led another diamond.

South’s hand was now dead. Whether he drew the last trump or knocked out the club ace first, there was no way to make the contract. The best he could have done was play the heart ace and ruff a heart, but that still yieldeded only nine tricks. He actually cleared clubs, and now Itabashi won to return yet another trump and doom declarer to two down.

Just for the record, the only winning line today after a diamond lead is to play on clubs after drawing just one round of trumps. Then declarer can arrange either to ruff hearts in hand or establish the clubs.