aces on bridge

“I am free, no matter what rules surround me. If I find them tolerable, I tolerate them; if I find them too obnoxious, I break them. I am free because I know that I alone am morally responsible for everything I do.”

— Robert Heinlein

The USA1 under-21 team lost to Sweden in the finals of the 2014 World Youth Bridge Championships held in Istanbul. The gold medalists included three players who have already gone on to represent their country and won medals in the European championships open and women’s sections! Among the players on the Swedish team were Ida Michael and Ola Rimstedt, who won the junior title two years later, while Mikael and Ola Rimstedt won the world pairs title last October.

The USA silver medalists included Ben Kristensen, who played with Kevin Rosenberg. The latter is the son of Michael and Debbie Rosenberg, both world champions. Their teammates were Christopher Huber and Oren Kriegel.

Today’s deal came up in the final. In the first room, the Swedish East (probably rashly) sacrificed in five diamonds at his second turn to speak. This decision seems unsound because he was too balanced in the side suits, and he was not bereft of defense. This was passed around to the USA North, who doubled and collected 500.

In the second room, the auction was as shown: East (Huber for USA) bid just four diamonds. This passed to the Swedish North, who bid four hearts.

Kriegel, West, led the diamond ace, and on seeing dummy’s singleton, tabled the only card at trick two that could lead to the defeat of the contract — the club jack — a textbook surround play to ensure three club tricks for his side, whichever club declarer played from dummy.

ANSWER: Your partner has shown a pre-emptive raise, so your values on defense are strictly limited. My best guess to beat this would be to lead the spade ace and give partner a spade ruff or two. Starting with a top diamond may extract our own entry prematurely, so you must hit the ground running with the spade ace.