ACES ON BRIDGE

“The art of being wise is the art of knowing what to overlook.”

— William James

After South’s strong opening and North’s nebulous response, East’s two-spade intervention was meek at best. With so much offense, East should have aimed to take up space with a jump to three spades. As it was, South was able to name his suit at the three-level. When North raised to game, promising nothing, South took a punt at slam. Might North have considered temporizing with three spades? If so, I’m not sure whether South could have done more than bid four hearts.

Against the slam, West led the spade eight. On the sight of dummy, declarer could count only 11 tricks. Fortunately, dummy’s major-suit spots gave declarer a slim chance of maneuvering into an additional trick.

The opening lead was headed by the nine and king (East’s best attempt at a false card). Declarer won the club return in hand, cashed the heart ace and reached dummy with the heart eight to take the first of his ruffing spade finesses, leading the spade nine to try to pin the seven-doubleton or -tripleton in West’s hand.

Declarer ruffed East’s spade ace high, delighted to see the seven fall, returned to the heart 10 and called for another spade, ruffing out East’s queen. All that remained was to reach dummy with the diamond queen, to park the losing club on dummy’s established spade six.

Yes, South needed help on lead as well as some luck in the spotcards, but he took advantage of his best chance to make the slam.

ANSWER: We are forced to bid and could either settle for two spades or attempt to find a minor suit fit via a scrambling two no-trump. Given that East has not raised hearts, partner is likely to have a doubleton heart and could easily be 5=2=3=3. In that case, we would prefer to play in spades at a cheaper level. So try two spades.