ACES ON BRIDGE

“A common mistake that people make when trying to design something completely fool-proof is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools.”

-- Douglas Adams

In today’s deal, when East opened two spades, some Souths might have doubled, planning to give partner a chance to show values, and if not, to play three no-trump. That would be sensible, but at the table, our hero jumped directly to three no-trump to end the auction. Since dummy was not without its features, the play in three no-trump would have been very straightforward on a spade lead. However, West hit on a fourth-highest heart three, and that gave declarer real problems, since he could not reach dummy except in the diamond suit, which would need the diamond king to be onside. Otherwise, if the heart honors were wrongly placed, East would surely be able to win the diamond and play a heart through declarer.

However, declarer found a solution, based on the fact that spades were known to be 6-2. He won the heart lead on board, finessed the spade queen, cashed the top clubs and the spade ace, then exited with the heart king. West could cash out the hearts, but was then endplayed to lead diamonds, after which dummy was high.

The first time I looked at the hand, I thought that if South had exited from hand at trick seven with a low heart, West might have won with the ace and successfully exited with a low heart. But that would have gifted South an eighth trick; to make a ninth, he would then have had to endplay East with a spade, to force him eventually to lead diamonds around to dummy.

ANSWER: Your plan here should be to double for takeout and cue-bid over a minimum response from your partner. You will then follow up with three no-trump, suggesting a strong, balanced hand -- too strong for a direct bid of three no-trump. Despite your strength, you cannot guarantee even making game, much less committing your hand any higher, unless partner shows signs of life.