ACES ON BRIDGE

“I am about to take my last voyage, a great leap in the dark.”

— Thomas Hobbes

The trump coup is a maneuver that has a built-in sexiness that renders newsworthy even the most mundane example. In today’s deal, South must cash the right winners in the correct order.

In four spades, after South ruffs the third heart, he can see he must avoid a trump loser. He leads a spade to the ace, and when West’s queen appears, the 4-1 split looks almost certain. On the next round of trumps, East plays the nine, so South takes the jack, then goes after clubs.

East wins the ace at once, and then meanly plays back a heart, giving declarer a ruff-and-discard. South has to use dummy’s last trump, throwing a diamond from hand, and now he needs a trump coup.

He crosses to hand with a top diamond and takes the club finesse, then must guess East’s shape. If he plays East to hold doubletons in both minors rather than having a singleton diamond and three clubs, South can succeed in his contract.

The key is to cash the diamond queen before playing dummy’s winning club. If East ruffs in, South overruffs and draws trumps. So East discards on the club queen, but South pitches his diamond king. At trick 12, South is poised with the spade kingeight over East’s 10-seven, with the lead in dummy. Declarer gets the last two tricks by taking a trump finesse, even though dummy has no trumps left.

Note that if South does not cash both diamonds early, East pitches a diamond on the third club, and the coup fails.

ANSWER: Is this hand a limit raise in spades, or a simple or constructive raise to two spades? Much depends on whether you play a forcing notrump. If you do, with a raise to two spades being constructive, I would bid two spades. If not, I’d treat the hand as a limit raise. As a general rule, 10-counts are constructive, not limit raises. The five-card suit is good; the doubleton queen in an aceless hand is bad.