ACES ON BRIDGE

“Now, it is true that the nature of society is to create, among its citizens, an illusion of safety; but it is also absolutely true that the safety is always necessarily an illusion. Artists are here to disturb the peace.”

— James Baldwin

In today’s deal, sitting South, you should focus on making your contract if you can, while not worrying about overtricks. When West leads the spade four against your contract of three no-trump, how would you plan to make your nine tricks? At first glance, you can identify your eight top winners in the form of two hearts, two spades, three diamonds and a club. An extra trick could be made from either the diamonds or the clubs, but South should note that the diamonds are blocked, and dummy has only one entry, in spades, to help set up the diamonds.

One straightforward route to success would come if the diamond jack falls in two or three rounds. If that fails, you could resort to the club finesse. But is there a more reliable route to nine winners?

There is, and it comes from the intermediates in dummy. South should plan to cash the diamond ace, then overtake the diamond queen with the king before using the diamond 10 to force out the jack, in an attempt to ensure four diamond winners.

To guarantee a late entry to dummy, South should plan to win the first trick with the spade ace (even though you could score the spade jack, it would not generate an extra trick), then go after diamonds as described above. Diamonds will break 3-3 or 4-2 five times out of six.

ANSWER: On an auction of this sort, your partner will not have club length, so he surely has a balanced 12-14, and there is no reason that anyone but declarer will have a long suit. Since your side has half the deck, you might look for a lead that gives away the least. All things considered, a top heart seems less likely to do damage than either black suit, so I would lead the heart jack.