ACES ON BRIDGE

“Young men have a passion for regarding their elders as senile.” — Henry Brooks Adams

Today’s deal features two of the people most involved with setting up Senior events as a separate category in international bridge. Goran Mattsson of Germany and the late Doctor Nissan Rand of Israel won the Brighton Summer Congress a few years ago, and this deal certainly helped them.

Rand, who was always an optimist, drove to slam facing three key-cards. Mattsson received the lead of the diamond jack and inserted dummy’s queen. Now declarer drew two rounds of trumps, then continued with a second diamond toward the ace-nine. West put up the 10, and dummy’s ace was played.

South next drew the last trump and cashed the club king and ace, then ran the spade nine to East’s jack. What would you do as East now?

Noting the ace-queen-10 of spades in dummy, East returned a club. Mattsson ruffed in hand and discarded the diamond nine from dummy. Next came the diamond eight, and when West withheld the king — covering would not have helped — declarer let it run. Then South’s last diamond was trumped in dummy, and Mattsson claimed his slam.

Curiously, had East returned a spade instead of a club, one of South’s diamonds would have gone away, but not both, and the slam would have failed. West’s count signals in spades and clubs should have given East the full picture here, but note that even if South had started with three spades and three diamonds, the spade play would still set the hand.

ANSWER: Had East not suggested values, you might have raised to two hearts, but you should not do so here. Your hand is all about defense; if your RHO promises decent values with a call at the two-level, then your raise in hearts indicates a decent hand, decent hearts or decent offense. You have none of these, and you don’t want to direct a heart lead, so pass. You might reopen over two diamonds, of course.