THE ACES ON BRIDGE

“The universe is simple; it’s the explanation that’s complex.” -- Woody Allen .....................

In bridge, one should never say never, and while an even trump break is normally at the top of declarer’s wish list, there are always exceptions. Sometimes one has to project the complete distribution and work out that bad splits can be more productive than a favorable break. That is especially true of hands like today’s.

After a fairly sporting auction by North, Augustin Santamaria of Argentina reached a delicate four-spade game, a contract that was made even more challenging by the fact that the auction had indicated the danger of bad splits. On the lead of the club jack, Santamaria took dummy’s ace and played a low diamond. East won his diamond ace, cashed the club queen and exited with a diamond.

At this point, Santamaria was in a very awkward position. He could see that if trumps were 2-2, then unless West specifically had the doubleton jack-10 of trumps, the defense could promote a trump winner for themselves by leading a third round of clubs after taking the trump ace. Therefore, when declarer led the spade seven from hand and West followed with a small trump, declarer went for his only legitimate chance to make the hand by ducking in dummy! When East produced the spade ace, there was no longer any possibility of the defense producing a second trump trick. Thus the contract made, for a 12 IMP pick-up for Argentina, on the way to an upset in their knockout match in the 1986 Rosenblum Cup.

ANSWER: Depending on the vulnerability and form of scoring, you might be prepared to risk pre-balancing with a double here. Yes, you might catch LHO with a strong hand, but at pairs or non-vulnerable, you should risk a double to show a three-suited hand with opening values and short spades.