A marriage of bridge tricks

Comedians make jokes about wives. Comediennes make quips about husbands. We can relate to them because they are so close to the truth. Zsa Zsa Gabor lent her own style when she said, “I'm a marvelous housekeeper. Every time I leave a man, I keep his house.”

In bridge, you have to be careful to keep your tricks. If you have a winner in one hand, you must have an entry to that hand — or be able to force an opponent to lead the suit for you.

Today's auction was tricky. What should North do over West's three-spade opening? Pass is cowardly. Three no-trump is brilliant or foolhardy, depending on the result. Four clubs is one-dimensional. Double is the most flexible action, but dangerous.

Over the double, South might pass for penalties, but that is risky with such poor spades. (He can get 800 for down three.) He could try three no-trump, but that suffers from the same drawback. Four hearts is the normal bid.

West starts with three rounds of spades, declarer ruffing the last high in the dummy. East discards three diamonds. South draws trumps, reducing the deal to no-trump. Now it looks superficially attractive to continue with the club ace and another club. However, against the bad break, the contract dies. East wins two club tricks to go with the two spade tricks already in the defenders' bag.

The correct play is a low club to dummy's jack. (If West has the singleton king, tough!) The ace must be kept as the entry to the spade jack. Declarer's 10 tricks are one spade, four hearts, two diamonds, two clubs and one spade ruff in the dummy.