ACES ON BRIDGE

“Prosperity doth best discover vice, but adversity doth best discover virtue.” -- Francis Bacon

Today’s deal may have a relatively simple theme, but it is one that might elude the nonexpert. See what you think.

In today’s auction, a light oneheart opening and a Jacoby two notrump raise (showing four trumps and game-forcing values) reveal the club singleton in the South hand. Cue-bids show the pointed aces and Roman Key- card Blackwood follows, disclosing no key-cards are missing. The five no-trump call is looking for a grand slam, promising all the key-cards, but South firmly puts the brakes on.

Against six hearts, West leads the diamond nine, best for the defense. Declarer wins the ace, draws two rounds of trumps and then plays the club ace, followed by the queen, discarding a diamond. The finesse wins, but in a sense, that is immaterial.

Later, declarer discards one of his two spades on the club jack-10 and so makes 12 tricks: two spades, six hearts, one diamond and three clubs.

The point of this hand is that although the finesse can be taken either way, there is a difference in the timing and the number of discards for losing diamonds that declarer can obtain.

As you can see, even if the ruffing club finesse fails and West wins the club king, declarer would still have 12 tricks. Crucially, the losing diamond has already been discarded. However, if the direct club finesse is taken, then East might be able to win his king (as here) and cash a diamond winner.

ANSWER: Declarer sounds as if he has at least five clubs, together with three or four spades to a top honor. To kill spade ruffs in dummy, a trump lead feels right. You are not especially worried about declarer setting up and running the hearts, but preventing the spade ruffs cannot wait.