ACES ON BRIDGE

“The thought behind I strove to join Unto the thought before, But sequence ravelled out of reach Like balls upon a floor.” -- Emily Dickinson

Four hearts appears to be a simple enough contract, but as always, you need to make the right plan at the start of the play. You should aim to score five trumps, four clubs and the spade ace.

You will need to ruff the clubs good if they divide 4-2, which is the most likely split.

After establishing the clubs, you will have to draw trumps, ending in the dummy.

It follows that you should not aim to take a spade ruff. (That would be so even if West had not bid, thereby alerting you to the risk of an overruff by East.)

How does the play go? Best is to win the spade lead (for fear of a diamond switch) and draw just two rounds of trumps with the ace and king. You then play the club queen and ace and ruff a club in the South hand. This line would cost you an overtrick if clubs happened to break 3-3. But it is for a good cause, though, because you give yourself an extra chance when clubs break 4-2. Here West is out of clubs, but cannot overruff.

You return to dummy with a trump to the queen and score two more club tricks.

The trap on the deal would be to start by drawing trumps. After that start you would make the contract only if clubs broke 3-3 or the diamond ace was with West.

Incidentally, if trumps broke 4-1, you would just run the clubs, pitching spades and hoping for the best.

ANSWER: Whenever you have three spades on this auction and your values are in the majors, you should consider raising spades rather than rebidding no-trump. Even if partner is relatively short in hearts, your hand offers the possibility for ruffs or useful discards when played at spades. So it looks right to raise to two spades here.