ACES ON BRIDGE
“If you can learn a simple trick, Scout, you’ll get along a lot better with all kinds of folks. You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view, until you climb inside of his skin and walk around in it.” — Atticus Finch
Today’s deal sees a point of general principles, together with the challenging issue of trying to use empathy at the table. As a defender, you need to put yourself in declarer’s position and try to work out what he would have done with certain hands.
The first issue arises in the auction. East should not open with a pre-empt of course, or come in over one no-trump. But balancing over two hearts, while not without risk, makes sense, either at pairs, or nonvulnerable at teams or rubber. More to the point, West must not re-compete to three spades here; his partner has already bid every single one of his values for him!
Against three hearts, you should lead the king in partner’s suit, not the ace, even if your agreement is to lead ace from ace-king in general. Regardless, West will probably continue with two more rounds of spades, and declarer will ruff and lead a low heart from hand.
West wins with the queen, exits with a club and ... surely you didn’t fall for that as East, did you? When declarer leads a low heart from hand at trick four and West plays the queen, what should East imagine is going on? Surely if declarer had king-sixth or -seventh of hearts, he would cross to dummy in a minor to play trumps? The only reason for leading trumps from hand is that the whole deal looks very much like the diagram. East must overtake the trump, lead a fourth spade and score his side’s trumps separately for down one.
ANSWER: This is the bidding in the diagrammed deal, but I would recommend going through the forcing no-trump rather than raising hearts (assuming you play raises as constructive). The sterile distribution and weak trumps suggest taking the pessimistic position. I agree that this is close; make the trumps 10-9-third, and I might take the opposite path.