AceS On briDge

“The main function of a pseudo-promotion is to deceive people outside the hierarchy. When this is achieved, the maneuver is counted a success.”

— Laurence Peter

As South, you overcall two spades over two hearts without much enthusiasm, and at your next turn, your partner insists you bid slam if you have a heart control. How can you resist with such a perfect heart holding, even if the rest of your hand is uninspiring?

When dummy comes down, your slam appears to have excellent chances; you just need to hold your minor-suit losers to one. After winning the heart, you play the spade king and another spade to dummy, East pitching a heart. How should you plan the play from there on in, assuming East to have precisely six hearts?

The best sequence of plays is to cash the club and diamond aces, then ruff a heart to hand and lead a club to the nine, assuming West follows suit with a small club.

This line of play wins in every case when West has three clubs, since you have a discard coming eventually. It also works when he has four clubs, since when East wins the second club, he will be endplayed.

It also wins outright if West has the doubleton club queen or 10, or any singleton. And even if East had four clubs to the queen-10, then all he could do would be to return a club. At that point, the finesse for the diamond queen would be heavily favored to work. So you can cross to hand in spades and take the diamond finesse.

This line of play loses only when East has a 1-6-2-4 pattern with both minor-suit queens and the club 10.

ANSWER: The most accurate description of your hand is to treat it as a balanced 18-19 and rebid two no-trump, which invites your partner to bid game. The small doubleton heart is not a positive feature of your hand, but you never promised your partner a rose garden. Rebidding two clubs here would be too likely to miss a game if your partner should pass.