Aces on bridge

“Advice is seldom welcome; and those who want it the most always like it the least.”

-- The Earl of Chesterfield

Some of the most important techniques in bridge are those that assist you in establishing a suit. In today’s deal, how would you play the spade slam when West leads the diamond 10? The key is to make full use of the available entries to dummy.

If spades break, you are home. What if they do not? West may have led from the diamond king but it is no more than a 50-50 chance. And rightly or wrongly, many players regard leading from a king as a sin comparable to coveting one’s neighbor’s ox. A rather better chance is that clubs will break 4-3 and that you can set up a second discard in the suit.

You rise with dummy’s diamond ace and lead low to your spade ace. You then unblock the club ace and return to dummy with the spade king, discovering that East holds a trump trick. All follow to the club king, on which you discard one of your diamond losers. You then ruff a club, and when you return to dummy with a top heart and lead a low club, there is nothing that East can do. If he ruffs the losing club with his master trump, you will discard your last diamond loser and claim the balance. No doubt East will prefer to discard on the fourth round of clubs. You ruff in hand, return to dummy with a heart, and lead the club jack. Whether or not East ruffs, you will throw your last diamond and make the slam.

ANSWER: On auctions of this sort, the world is divided into those who go passive (here a diamond lead is more logical than a club, since partner had the chance to double clubs and didn’t do so) and those who go active with a heart lead. Put me in the latter group, for better or worse. A trump lead is NOT passive by the way -- give partner the doubleton spade jack to see why.