A C E S O N B R I D G E

“Life’s like a movie, write your own ending. Keep believing, keep pretending.”

-- The Muppets

Geoff Hampson, a Canadian who has been a full- time professional player in the U. S. for 20 years, won the 2010 World Teams Championship in partnership with Eric Greco. Today’s deal shows Hampson at work in last spring ’s Vanderbilt Knock- outs in New Orleans.

Hampson, South, knew that he was looking at eight- plus likely tricks in his own hand. So he couldn’t bid less than four spades, but he bought an uninspiring dummy.

West led the diamond queen, and East played the five, intended as suit preference, to try to prevent his partner from shifting to a heart. ( It is logical when partner knows your attitude to use spot- cards as suit preference; here at trick one, West knows East has the diamond ace- king.)

West duly shifted to a club, which went to the 10 and ace. South proceeded to play six rounds of spades, and since East was forced to keep two clubs -- to prevent his partner from being endplayed in clubs -and the diamond ace, he could only retain two hearts.

The simple line in the five- card ending was to enter dummy with the club king and take a heart finesse. But given that West appeared to have opened a weak two- bid with a five- card suit, he almost certainly had the heart king. So Hampson felt sure the jack and 10 of hearts lay with East. He led out the heart ace followed by the queen, and now whether or not West won the trick, Hampson had his 10th winner.

ANSWER: The right way to describe this hand is to transfer into diamonds by your partnership methods ( either two no- trump or three clubs) and then to show a singleton spade. After transferring to a minor, a new suit at the threelevel shows shortage in that suit. So transfer to diamonds and bid three spades. Incidentally, if you had diamonds plus a four- card major, you would start with Stayman.