ACES ON BRIDGE

“First ask yourself: What is the worst that can happen? Then prepare to accept it. Then proceed to improve on the worst.”

— Dale Carnegie

The auction in today’s deal saw North taking control when his partner showed extra values and an unbalanced hand. He was looking for the grand slam, but when his partner bid six diamonds in response to his ask of five notrump, it showed the diamond king while denying the club king. Now North could only count 12 tricks unless his partner had the spade jack, so he settled for the small slam.

West led the heart king to the ace. Before reading on, you might consider what you would do, bear- ing in mind that if trumps broke 3-2, you would have tricks coming out of your ears.

South took the essential first step of ruffing a heart with the spade four. Then he played off the spade ace and king, getting the bad news. Now dummy’s trump spots came into their own.

South next led a diamond to the ace and took another heart ruff with the spade queen, thereby stripping the East hand of hearts, he knew, because of West’s overcall. Then declarer led a diamond to the queen and advanced the spade 10 to drive out East’s jack, throwing the club four from hand. He could win the club return in dummy with the ace, draw the last trump with the spade nine, throwing his club queen from hand in the process. His three high diamonds in hand were enough to take the last three tricks. Contract made.

As you will discover, if you do not ruff a heart at trick two, the slam cannot be made.

ANSWER: This hand is far too prime to give up on slam immediately. A sensible approach is to bid three diamonds, planning to raise clubs, even if partner bids three no-trump. It is hard to imagine that five clubs isn’t cold here, so I can afford to take an indirect route, going past three no-trump. At pairs, the problem is harder.