ACES ON BRIDGE

“Sweet Analytics, ‘tis thou hast ravished me.”

— Christopher Marlowe

When another player opens the bidding but you end up buying the contract, you should generally have a pretty good idea where the majority of the points are sitting.

Here, playing five-card majors, West opened one spade.

North doubled for takeout, and South jumped to the no-trump game.

West led the spade six, and declarer was convinced that West held all three missing aces. The knee-jerk reaction would have been to let the lead run around to his hand. However, on closer analysis, declarer realized that if he played low and won in hand, West would win any red-suit continuation and play the spade ace, then spade jack. When in with the other red ace, West would have two further spades to cash for one down.

So, to hinder West, declarer rose with dummy’s spade king, then came to hand with the club ace to lead a low diamond toward dummy. On the actual layout, if West takes his ace and continues spades, declarer still has a spade stopper after knocking out the heart ace.

At the table, West played low, and dummy’s king won. The heart king came next, won by West, who returned a heart. Declarer cashed the club queen before playing a diamond to the jack, discovering the 4-1 break. Declarer then took dummy’s club king, played a heart to the jack (West pitching two spades) and exited with the spade queen. West won and took the spade jack, but was then endplayed in diamonds to give declarer his ninth trick.

ANSWER: Lead the diamond three. Yes, you have a side-suit singleton, but it is in declarer’s primary suit. You do not want to help him set up the spades, and besides, a ruff might be taken at the cost of a natural trump trick. It is best to lead the unbid suit in the hope of setting up some tricks. The singleton lead seems to be against the odds. It needs partner to have lots of entries, including at least one of the major-suit aces.