ACES ON BRIDGE

“You can go where you please, you can skid up the trees, But you don’t get away from the guns!”

-- Rudyard Kipling

Sometimes it is better to go quietly when you are outgunned. In this deal, North knew his partner was short in diamonds and gambled a second double. His partner took him seriously and jumped to game with his meager two-count, to find himself in a parlous contract. Even though the opponents’ cards lay extremely well, finding the winning line in five clubs was not entirely obvious.

As West holds the doubleton club ace, the heart king and spade queen, declarer stands a good chance after West’s normal diamond lead. (Yes, a spade lead lets the defenders organize a spade ruff.)

Declarer ruffs the second diamond and plays a club to the king, then ducks a club on the way back. West wins his bare club ace and shifts to the heart jack. Declarer finesses the queen, cashes the heart ace and ruffs a diamond, then draws the last trump, pitching the small heart from dummy. Now declarer finesses in spades, cashes the spade ace and ruffs a diamond back to hand with his last trump.

After 11 tricks (two spades, two hearts, three trumps and four diamonds), he has reduced to a twocard ending with the heart 10 and a spade in hand and the K-3 of spades in dummy. To protect against the spade menace, West must pitch his master heart, hoping his partner can guard the suit, but South triumphantly cashes the heart 10 at trick 12.

ANSWER: In this sequence, you have more than enough to bid two hearts, and you would definitely want to bid hearts rather than diamonds since partner’s double is more about majors than unbid minors. If you were defending to clubs, you would hope for a diamond lead, not a heart -- but there again, if your side can make game, it is far more likely to be in hearts than in diamonds.