ACCES ON BRIDGE

“And from the day that’s over

No flashes of delight I can recover.”

-- Siegfried Sassoon

One thing about rubber bridge is that you frequently have to make up in the play for what you drop in the auction. In the following deal, six clubs appears to be far better than six no-trump despite the bad trump split. South can ruff a diamond and leave himself with many chances, but some ambiguity about whether four clubs was Gerber or showing a club fit led to the 4-4 fit being missed. A forcing three-club call by North at her third turn would perhaps have been wiser.

Still, six no-trump offered some fascinating play. On the lead of the spade 10, South won in dummy and cashed four rounds of clubs, on which East parted with two diamonds, echoing in the suit, and a low heart. Since she would surely have pitched a spade from three small, South cashed out the spades via the finesse, and that persuaded West to discard a small heart and a small diamond.

Reasoning that West would surely have led a heart without the ace, she was likely to hold that card. So declarer, going for the grandstand finish (on the grounds that anyone can take a finesse!), cashed the diamond ace and king to strip West of her exit cards. Then, instead of taking a simple finesse for the heart jack, he led a heart to the queen. West won the ace, but in the two-card ending she was endplayed, forced to lead away from the heart jack around to South’s 10, and the contract came home.

ANSWER: Given your spade length, partner surely doesn’t have four spades. So he has at least four diamonds. Given that, you want to raise diamonds to keep the opponents out of their presumed fit in clubs or hearts, so bid three diamonds as a preemptive raise, not a limit raise. With the latter hand-type, you would start with a cue-bid.