Bridge with Bob Jones

West has the values for his takeout double, sort of. He does have a hand worth an opening bid and he does have at least four cards in each of the unbid suits. Considering that most of his values are in the opponents’ suits, a pass instead couldn’t be criticized.

East-West, despite holding most of the high-card points, can hardly make anything -perhaps seven tricks in clubs or no trump. How would four hearts by North-South fare?

East overtook the opening club lead and shifted to a low trump. South ducked and West won his jack and cashed the ace of hearts. Declarer had nine tricks at this point, with three hearts in hand, two club ruffs in dummy, and dummy’s two ace-king combinations. Spades offered the best chance for another trick. There are two ways to play this suit for a third trick -- double finesse and hope West started with both the queen and the jack, or try to ruff out the queen-jack-third. Our good friend, Abner, the great mathematician, tells us that the double finesse offers the better chance.

Had West shifted to a spade after cashing the ace of hearts, South would have to decide right away about how to play the suit. West, however, shifted to a tricky five of diamonds. This gave South a chance to pursue a third remote chance for an extra trick -- ruff out queen-jack-third in diamonds before tackling the spades. That’s exactly what South did and the longshot came home! Ten tricks and a game bonus were rewards for courageous bidding.