ACES ON BRIDGE

“A knowledgeable fool is a greater fool than an ignorant fool.” — Moliere

This week’s deals all come from national championship events from Philadelphia.

As West, you deal and pass, then hear one diamond on your left and one heart on your right. You bid two clubs, which leads to two hearts on your left and four hearts on your right. You lead your singleton spade and see the diagramed dummy.

That opening spade lead goes to the six, partner’s seven and declarer’s queen. To your pleasure, declarer plays a heart to the ace, then a heart back to her jack as your partner pitches the spade four. What next?

The correct defense is to lead a low diamond now rather than the ace. You need partner to have the diamond king, and given that this is a teams event, you must assume he will know to rise with his king rather than duck (since if declarer has the ace, he cannot beat the game). Your natural play would seem to be to play the diamond ace and 10, but when your partner wins the trick, how would he know you wanted a spade ruff, not a diamond ruff? Conversely, if you lead the diamond nine to his king, he won’t have any option but to get the defense right — you hope.

The good news on this occasion is that because your partner started with all the small spades, he will be able to read that you initially led a singleton and that you want a spade ruff — you may not be so lucky next time! To see what I mean, imagine that the spade two and nine were switched.