aces on bridge

“Science is a first-rate piece of furniture for a man’s upper chamber, if he has common sense on the ground floor.” — Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

Cenk Tuncok gave the daily bulletin at the NEC tournament some analysis on this deal. It is a defensive problem, so look at just the West and North cards, and see if you can work out what to do.

South has opened a strong no-trump, and you have decided to let discretion be the better part of valor because of the vulnerability. When you lead the heart king against three no-trump (requesting the unblock of an honor or otherwise a count signal), partner contributes the two and declarer the jack. The position seems very straightforward, so why am I posing it to you as a problem? It looks obvious to continue with a heart — though whether you play a high or low one doesn’t seem critical.

But what if you play upsidedown count and attitude? Now partner’s two and declarer’s jack appear to be incompatible; someone has mis-sorted their hand or is playing a very deep — or clueless — game.

If playing standard signals, I do not see how you can do anything but continue hearts, and that would be fatal.

As you can see, declarer has the doubleton spade ace and little hope for a ninth trick unless you continue hearts. However, if you do fall into his trap, he can win his ace and play back a third heart to build the heart eight into his game-going trick.

Should you work this out if partner’s heart two is inconsistent with three small? I think you should — and especially from now on if the declarer is Cenk Tuncok!

ANSWER: This hand is worth an immediate three-spade bid, not just because of the fifth spade, but also because of the honor location and the singleton heart. You want to encourage partner to bid on over the opponents’ likely call of four hearts. If four hearts is passed around to you, you will have an interesting decision, though. I’d favor bidding on, however undisciplined that might appear.