ACES ON BRIDGE

“I bend, but I do not break.” — Jean de La Fontaine

Today’s trick-one play carries a prosaic motive, namely to avoid throwing away a trick.

The auction makes West leery of a spade lead, so he tries a fourthhighest diamond instead. Declarer needs to score three diamond tricks, so he tries the 10 from dummy, hoping to induce a cover if East has the king. Should East fall from grace, South can subsequently run the diamond nine and collect nine tricks.

If East instead plays low at trick one, he can beat the game on best defense thereafter. If West has the diamond ace, it makes no difference what East does at trick one. His play is only relevant when West has led from the diamond jack. Since West might lead the nine from jack-nineeight, declarer is likely to hold one of the nine or eight. Holding acenine-low, declarer would play low from dummy, but he might put up the 10 with ace-eight-low in hand. That avoids a later guess if East can insert the nine and West subsequently gets in and leads a second low diamond. By playing the 10 first, declarer gets two bites at the cherry.

Playing low on the diamond 10 costs nothing when declarer has diamond ace-eight-low, because West can continue with the jack when he gets in. This requires West to obtain the lead twice, but East can see that is possible. Indeed, from East’s perspective, his side may have a better line of attack than diamonds, so his goal may simply be not to give away an unnecessary trick.

ANSWER: Bid two hearts. Support with support and pay no mind to your spade suit for the time being. Even if you had five spades, you would still want to raise hearts at once. Any bid that limits your hand, while telling partner something he surely wants to know, is a good call.