ACES ON BRIDGE

“England expects every man will do his duty.”

— Horatio Nelson

South's intermediate jump shift garners a forcing three hearts from North. When South cue-bids four diamonds, agreeing hearts, North asks for key-cards and suggests playing six clubs. That gambit succeeds here — South is happy to pass, and the better slam is found.

When West leads the spade queen, declarer can see that a 3-3 diamond break or a successful heart finesse will see him home. Alternatively, declarer can pitch a heart on a spade and play to ruff out the hearts, using the diamonds as late entries. If that fails, he can always fall back on an even diamond split, with some squeeze chances in reserve as well.

South wins the spade king and plays a trump, West taking the ace to shift to diamonds. Declarer wins in hand, draws trumps, crosses to the heart ace, pitches a heart on the spade ace and ruffs a heart. He uses dummy's two diamond entries to ruff out the heart king and return to dummy.

West ought to have held up his club ace, if only to retain control for the time being. Declarer must use his time in dummy to cash the major-suit aces and ruff a heart, lest he run out of entries, but then upon winning the club ace, West can force declarer with a spade. Now declarer is unable to ruff another heart without surrendering trump control, and the slam eventually fails.

Providing West defends accurately and East does not cover the heart queen prematurely, declarer cannot make the hand. If the club king and queen were swapped, declarer would come home by starting trumps with the king to crash his own queen.

ANSWER: The suspect singleton king counterbalances your good primary suit. Given that your hand is below minimum in terms of values anyway, do not open this at the onelevel. In my opinion, you are far closer to a three-club preempt. Your playing strength and lack of defense against the majors make that call a decent gamble.