Aces on bridge

“I would that we were, my beloved, white birds on the foam of the sea!

We tire of the flame of the meteor, before it can pass by and flee....”

-- W.B. Yeats

Today’s deal comes from a collection of bridge tips by David Bird, who is best known for his humorous collections of stories about the Abbot and many others.

Against your contract of four spades West leads the diamond king and switches to the spade five. Plan the play, and if you want to cover up the East and West cards to make your task harder, feel free to do so!

The obvious source of extra tricks is the clubs, but to establish additional winners in that suit, you have to surrender a trick. If you simply draw trump and duck a club, East will win and play a diamond through. You might try to lead a club to dummy’s king and duck the return, but if East flies up with the queen on the second round (or West unblocks his jack on the first round), the defenders will have the upper hand.

Is there any way that you can establish clubs without letting East on lead? Yes and no. What you have to do is find a way to get rid of that club loser, while losing the lead to West, not East. Instead of playing three rounds of clubs, win the spade shift from West in dummy (while taking care to preserve your spade two in hand), and play the heart king, pitching a club. Later you will be able to ruff the clubs good without surrendering the lead, and you can then cross to dummy with the spade four to cash them.

ANSWER: With your extra sidesuit shape and your values concentrated in your long suits, you should compete to three hearts. You should not bid three diamonds, though -- that would be a game-try with approximately this pattern. Change the heart jack to the heart king or even perhaps the queen, and you would have a sound minimum for that action.