Aces on bridge

“She was worse than a blabber; she was a hinter. It gave her pleasure to rouse speculation about dangerous things.”

-- Robertson Davies

When the Open Teams of France and Portugal met in the 2010 European Championship, France squeaked home, but Portugal scored well on this board. In the Open Room, Herve Vinci-guerra for France opened one club as dealer, and Eric Eisenberg responded one spade. West doubled and East bid two diamonds. South’s two spades closed the auction, and declarer emerged safely enough with his partscore.

In the Closed Room, Portugal’s Juliano Barbosa opened one club, like his French counterpart. But here, Antonio Palma speculatively jumped to four spades on his sevenloser hand. West, Alain Levy, with the strongest hand at the table, doubled, and East, Paul Chemla, let it ride.

West led the heart king, which Palma won in dummy. He called for the spade nine and, when this held, followed up with dummy’s second trump to his 10, West showing out. On the club five, Levy rose with his ace, then cashed a heart trick. Knowing from East’s carding that nothing more was available in that suit, West switched to a tricky diamond jack. Unfazed, Palma called for dummy’s queen, which held, then began his trump reduction by cashing the club king and ruffing a club. A diamond to the ace and a heart ruff in hand completed his trump reduction to bring him down to the same spade length as East.

Now Palma exited in diamonds, and regardless of the return, he was able to make both his ace and queen of trumps for plus 590.

ANSWER:

Just to set the record straight, after a one-diamond overcall over your partner’s one-club opening, a bid of one of a major by you shows four or more cards, not five cards. It is important to differentiate this case from the opponents’ overcalling one heart, when a one-spade call by you would show five and a double would show four spades.