ACES ON BRIDGE

“How all occasions do inform against me!”

— William Shakespeare

To his credit, West restrained himself from doubling four spades on this hand, but he fell from grace with his hurried defense, which gave too much away.

West did well to lead the heart ace rather than the club ace. But on seeing the dummy, he assumed that the contract was certain to fail, provided the club ace stood up. He therefore cashed the club ace, everyone following, before switching to the diamond nine. Take the South cards now and see how you would play from this point.

At the table, declarer deduced from West’s rush to cash his two aces that he was expecting to make two trump tricks. So South won with the diamond ace and cashed the trump king. When he continued with the heart king, East completed a high-low in the suit. Declarer saw that prospects were not so bad, as long as West held four hearts and East held two. He threw his last heart on the club king, then called for dummy’s heart queen. East ruffed with his last trump, and declarer overruffed. South then returned to dummy with the diamond king and discarded a diamond on the heart 10. At this stage, declarer’s last four cards were the trump ace-jacknine-six. He ruffed a club with the six and exited with the trump jack. West had to win with the queen and lead back into the ace-nine tenace. It is hard for West to see, but if he does not cash the club ace at trick one or two, the contract goes down, since the trump reduction does not work.