ACES ON BRIDGE

“Show me a gambler and I’ll show you a loser, show me a hero and I’ll show you a corpse.”

-- Mario Puzo

Since the Fall Nationals are about to start, all the deals this week come from last November’s Nationals in Providence, Rhode Island.

Down at the half in his Senior Knockout Teams match, John Lusky first took a somewhat aggressive action in the bidding, then found the way home in his slam, which in the end constituted considerably more than the margin of his team’s victory.

Facing a strong no-trump with some heart support, but nonetheless a hand that wasn’t worth a cue-bid at its second turn, Lusky elected to use key-card for hearts and bid on to slam. He was hoping, of course, not to buy too many wasted values in spades.

Having won the opening spade lead with the ace in dummy, how would you have advanced from there? Lusky played the club king and a club to the ace, then ran the heart 10! When it held and both opponents followed, he ruffed his club loser, unblocked the heart king, returned to hand with the diamond ace and drew the last trump. The way the cards lay, he couldn’t misguess diamonds, so that was 13 IMPs to his side.

His logic was that with East marked with long spades, West was favored to have heart length, and thus the queen. When one defender shows real length in a side-suit, finessing the other defender for the trump queen becomes much more attractive.

Incidentally, had trumps been 4-0, Lusky would have needed to find East with a singleton diamond honor, so that he could set up the diamonds for three tricks.

ANSWER: It is a little lazy to jump to game here. Yes, you have only a 12count, but facing the right 12-count (the spade ace, heart king, and five diamonds to the king-queen), you might make a grand slam! While as Bob Hamman says, partner never has the right hand, give him one chance. Jump to three spades, a splinter-bid in support of hearts, and let him take it from there.