ACES ON BRIDGE

“There are dark shadows on the Earth, but its lights are stronger in the contrast.”

— Charles Dickens

When this deal came up, two declarers were confronted with the same defense but drew two different conclusions from their opponents’ play.

At both tables, after the lead of the heart queen to the king and ace, each defender accurately shifted to the club king to try to set up tricks in that suit. At the first table, declarer won his ace and played a low spade to the king. When East discarded a diamond, declarer unblocked diamonds, then played a heart. However, West could now maneuver to score two trump tricks and a club.

At the second table, declarer read the lead as a singleton and asked himself why East had not played for heart ruffs. South concluded that West probably had a trump trick, and that East believed he needed more than just one heart ruff to beat the contract.

So, at trick three, South led the trump jack from hand and let it run when West played low. Then declarer took the trump ace and king before playing a low heart to the jack. Had West overtrumped to lead two rounds of clubs, declarer would have ruffed out the hearts, using the diamond king as a re-entry to dummy. So West discarded a club instead. Now declarer returned to dummy with the diamond king to run the heart nine, covered with the 10 and ruffed in hand.

West did his best by overruffing with the queen to cash a club, but declarer had the rest. He made four trumps, two hearts, two diamonds, the club ace and a club ruff.

ANSWER: It feels right to give delayed support to two hearts now. This is not only because you don’t want to give up entirely on a chance at game, but also because if your partner has a singleton spade, you might be able to use a trump in dummy to cope with a fourth-round minor-suit loser.