ACES ON BRIDGE

“Always leave them laughing when you say goodbye.”

— George M. Cohan

Today’s deal comes from Larry Cohen’s excellent new teaching book on declarer play in no-trump (details at bit.ly/2qnZAZj).

In three no-trump, you have eight top tricks — the ace-king in every suit — so it would be disappointing not to find a ninth somewhere, wouldn’t it? You put up the spade 10 at trick one, but East covers with the jack. When you duck, East continues with the spade nine, West playing the spade two. Which red suit will you work on?

It looks normal to try the longer suit, diamonds, first. That is fine, but the normal technique of ducking the first round of the suit will not take advantage of all of your chances. If you duck a diamond, the defense will clear spades. Now, when diamonds break 4-1, there is no time to switch to a Plan B. Instead, start diamonds by taking the ace and king. (You could make the case for leading low toward dummy, trying to pick up a singleton queen, jack or 10 in West, since it is more likely that West is short in diamonds than East).

If an honor appears, you lead low back to your hand, intending to insert the seven. And, for the record, if the diamond seven and six were switched, you could never pick up any four-card diamond holding in East, so you would start by leading the king from hand.

When you discover the 4-1 break, you have time to switch your attention to hearts. The 3-3 break there sees you home.

ANSWER: You should ask your opponent about the double, but the normal meaning for it is that West has a solid major. Your partner should redouble with a stopper in both majors, so there is something to be said for being cautious and retreating to four diamonds. If you have fallen victim to a con, you will at least know never to trust that opponent again.