ACES ON BRIDGE

In the 1998 Cap Gemini, Tony Forrester and Zia Mahmood went into a huge lead early on. But it had been whittled away by the time this board appeared in the final match.

When the second-place pair reached three no-trump, West led the heart jack in response to his partner’s opening bid. Declarer won with the king and misguessed the clubs. Back came the heart nine, ducked all around, and that was followed by a diamond to the king. Now the defense was ahead in the race to establish their long suit, and declarer had only eight tricks.

Here, though, the opening bid was a nebulous club, and the onediamond response an artificial negative, after which everything was natural. Krzysztof Martens led the diamond 10 to the king, East unblocking the queen.

Forrester, as declarer, naturally cashed the club ace and led to his jack. He ducked the diamond continuation, throwing a heart from dummy, to leave East on play.

Now Marek Szymanowski, East, made the natural play of switching to the spade queen, and Forrester won his king. He cashed the diamond ace, discarding another heart, and took his winning clubs. This reduced everyone down to five cards. Szymanowski had to keep three hearts, so just two spades. Forrester could now lead a spade, win the heart return with the ace and play a spade to win the last two tricks.

Had East shifted to a heart at trick six, the results of the top two pairs would have been reversed.

ANSWER: On his second turn, responder typically has options to invite game or drive to game in opener’s suit — but nothing in between. With this hand, you either have to raise clubs invitationally or use fourth suit forcing and force to game. I’d go for the invitational raise to three clubs, conscious that this is a slight underbid.

“No man chooses evil because it is evil; he only mistakes it for happiness, the good he seeks.” — Mary Wollstonecraft