aces on bridge

“The only reward of virtue is virtue; the only way to have a friend is to be one.”

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

Against three no-trump, West leads the spade jack; when East plays low, South must plan the play. Clearly, South must bring in dummy’s long diamond suit in order to make his contract. He can expect to win two spades, either two or three hearts, and three clubs. That comes to only eight tricks even if South manages to take a successful finesse in hearts. It is a far better idea, of course, to develop more than one diamond trick without risking a heart finesse.

Accordingly, South must let West hold the first trick with the spade jack! South will still be able to win two spade tricks later on, but note that if West’s spade jack happens to be a singleton, West will be obliged to shift to a new suit. This will give South time to establish and run dummy’s long diamonds.

When West shifts to a club, dummy wins with the queen and goes after diamonds at once. East takes the diamond king and returns a spade, and South finesses, then leads another diamond, establishing dummy’s long suit and bringing home 10 tricks.

Nicely played — but East missed his chance at trick one when he failed to overtake the lead with his king. The sight of the doubleton spade eight in dummy should have made it relatively easy for East to see that his spots were good enough to allow him to overtake the spade and still run the spades for the loss of just two tricks. Even if the jack and king fell together, the defense would still be in the lead in the race to establish the long suit.

ANSWER: Did you — like Walter the Walrus — count to 13 points and decide to bid three no-trump? You have ignored the extras in distribution this hand has. (Imagine partner has the spade ace, the diamond ace-king, and four clubs to the king-jack; that is 12 tricks facing a minimum 15 points.) Instead, transfer to diamonds or force with three diamonds if those are your methods, intending to invite slam later.