Aces on bridge

“Minorities ... are almost always in the right.” -- Revd. Sydney Smith

The NEC trophy, normally held in February, took place last year in April, so that the international field could then play a week later in the Yeh Bros. tournament at the same venue.

In the final of the NEC event, Mikhail Krasnosselski for the winners made a very nice play here. He reached five clubs doubled, and after the lead of the heart king, he knew that diamonds rated to be 7-0.

One reasonable plan now would be to cash two rounds of clubs ending in dummy, then take the spade ace to discard a heart loser. Then he would lead a diamond to the nine, and hope the defenders could not engineer a diamond ruff. This line works today, but it would fail if South were 6-4-0-3, perhaps somewhat more likely than his actual hand, given the auction. Krasnosselski found a better solution: He won the heart ace, ran five trumps, then led a diamond to the queen and ace. That forced East to win and return a diamond or spade to dummy, letting declarer discard one heart loser and then take the diamond finesse.

In the other room, four spades had gone down one, when North did not raise clubs and South could not bid on to the five-level on his own, so Russia gained 10 IMPs. Credit Sjoert Brink, North, for his threeclub call here; raising two-level overcalls encourages partner when he has bid with a good suit (and will teach him to have one next time if he has come in with an insufficient excuse).

ANSWER: In this sequence, the two-club call should be forcing, suggesting some kind of real extra values, though not necessarily a heart fit. Whatever partner has, you can show your hand by jumping to three diamonds, suggesting a real fit for diamonds, together with extras in the context of being a passed hand, and leave the rest to him.