aces on bridge

“It is not enough to fight. It is the spirit which we bring to the fight that decides the issue. It is morale that wins the victory.”

-- George C. Marshall

In today’s deal from the 2012 NEC tournament in Yokohama, five diamonds is a contract that looks hard to bring home with the club honors split.

At our featured table both the Indonesian and Japanese ladies played five diamonds on the defense of two rounds of spades. They ruffed and drew trump, then played three rounds of hearts early, ruffing in hand. When the Indonesian declarer next ran the club jack, the Japanese west failed to cover and declarer came home easily. The other declarer led a club to the 10, and now a club return killed any chances of a squeeze.

With the sight of all four hands, declarer does best to lead a club to the eight, 10 and queen after drawing trumps. East can later be caught in a simple heart-club squeeze.

So far so good -- but what about East-West? Could they bring home four spades doubled if allowed to buy the hand? Three pairs did collect 10 tricks in spades. If you can get there from East, to avoid the heart ruff, the game is extremely hard to beat.

After a diamond lead, you ruff and draw trump, eliminating diamonds en route, then lead a heart to the 10. To defeat you, North must win cheaply and return a low heart. That is far from easy to do, especially if playing regular signals, since South cannot afford to play the heart nine on the first round of the suit, or North is truly endplayed on winning the heart queen!

ANSWER: When opener jump shifts, he should know where he is going -- whether it is to raise partner, bid no-trump, or repeat one of his suits. Do not get in his way; give preference to his first suit with no clear-cut second action, as here. By supporting to three diamonds, you give him the maximum room to tell you why he forced to game. A threespade rebid should really be six, or a better five-carder.