AceS On briDge

“Henceforth I ask not goodfortune — I myself am goodfortune.” — Walt Whitman

In today’s hand, North had enough values, together with a source of tricks, to assume slam must have decent play. With a balanced hand, there didn’t seem to be a particularly easy way to offer a choice of slams, so he simply bid six no-trump.

However, one possibility might have been to transfer to diamonds, then jump to five no-trump, offering a choice of slams.

You could forgive West for feeling that the chance of a diamond lead costing a trick was negligible. You can tell the fates are aligned against you when you are dealt a four-card sequence and find when you lead it that it costs you a trick — in a vulnerable slam, to boot!

The lead of the diamond jack certainly simplified declarer’s task; when he put up the ace, the bad break came to light.

His projected 13 tricks had turned into 11, but South began by running the clubs. West had to find three discards, and two of them were easy when he let go of hearts. Then he bared the spade jack, but two rounds of spades put him back under the gun.

Both West and dummy had reduced to two hearts and four diamonds.

On the last spade winner, West dropped a heart, as did dummy. Declarer led a diamond to the eight and king, crossed to hand with the heart ace and led another diamond. West had to split his honors, and declarer ducked the nine, leaving West to lead away from the 10-6 of diamonds into dummy’s Q-7. Contract made!

ANSWER: After your restrained pass of three diamonds, your partner has shown extras. So you can hardly do less than drive him to game in the major of his choice by cue-bidding four diamonds, asking him to pick a suit. Even a 5-3 majorsuit fit should play well enough, you would expect.