THE ACES ON BRIDGE

Neither North nor South held back on this deal. North’s five-diamond call was a cuebid in support of spades, and a further exchange of cue-bids saw North at his next turn guarantee first-round heart control when he bid six diamonds, since he was looking for a grand slam when South had denied the heart ace. Now South decided the grand slam was unlikely to be worse than a diamond finesse.

West led the heart five against seven spades, and declarer saw that there was no rush to take the diamond finesse. After winning the heart lead in hand, then entering dummy with a top trump, declarer ruffed a club in hand. Now he repeated the process, then cashed the remaining hearts and ran all but one of his trumps. When East turned up with only two cards in the majors, the prospects of a diamond finesse succeeding were poor, but look what happened to East when declarer discarded dummy’s small diamonds on the trumps.

In the four-card ending, South had reduced to one trump and three diamonds, while dummy had two clubs and the diamond ace-king. That left East struggling for a discard from his three diamonds to the queen and the club ace-queen. If he threw a club, dummy’s jack could be established with a ruff; so he parted with a diamond, and declarer cashed both of dummy’s diamonds. Now South’s diamond jack became a winner, and he still had a trump in hand to reach it.

“The Mind of Man -- My haunt, and the main region of my song.” -- William Wordsworth