ACES ON BRIDGE

“Why are numbers beautiful? It’s like asking why is Ludwig van Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony beautiful. If you don’t see why, someone can’t tell you. I know numbers are beautiful. If they aren’t beautiful, nothing is.” — Paul Erdos

In today’s deal, with a singleton, five trumps and apparently fitting cards, South should jump directly to four spades on his second turn after discovering his partner has opening values and spade support. A bid of three spades would be purely competitive and not a game try, while a double of three hearts would be a more balanced game try.

When dummy comes down, South can count just four tricks in side suits. He therefore needs to take six trump tricks. One way is to win four trumps in his hand and ruff two cards in the dummy. Another way is to win three trumps in the dummy and ruff three cards in his hand. Either way will work perfectly well, as long as South avoids drawing trumps prematurely. As usual, when you want to ruff things, don’t draw trumps.

The easiest route to the cross-ruff is to trump two of dummy’s clubs. The first step is to win the opening lead and try the club finesse. West wins the club king and shifts to the spade ace and another spade, since he can see the looming threat.

South now leads a club to his ace, ruffs a club to dummy, then ruffs a heart and another club. At this point, South can afford to draw West’s last trump. He comes to his hand by ruffing another heart and leads out his last high trump. He has taken eight tricks and can collect his side’s diamond winners to make his contract.

ANSWER: It is far from clear where you should be going on this hand. But to start with, redouble to show your partner that you believe it is your side’s hand. You might make this call with somewhat less (take away the spade king, for example), so you plan to follow up with an invitational sequence, such as a jump to three hearts.