ACES ON BRIDGE

“There he was, that hairy hound from Budapest. Never leaving us alone, never have I ever known A ruder pest.” — Alan Jay Lerner

How far would you go to tease an opponent? Most of us are guilty of an occasional slip when it comes to our partners, but we respect our opponents a little more. However, consider this cautionary tale, told against himself by David Perkins, a regular in the TGR Bridge Club’s five-pound game, where strong two-bids are still not an endangered species. In the grand slam, South, Perkins, revealed what he called his own “nasty streak” at trick one when West led the spade 10. He put in the spade jack, hoping to torture East with false hope for just a moment if he had the queen. (You can achieve something similar with nine trumps including the ace-king-queen by “finessing” against the jack on the second round, giving your left-hand opponent hope that his partner will produce the queen.)

Anyway, Perkins got his result when East produced the spade queen at the first trick.

He ruffed and led a heart to the queen, West playing the jack and East the six.

Belatedly, Perkins realized that his contract was no longer assured. He would have liked to return to hand with a spade ruff, but the spade ace-king were two of his 13 tricks.

Admittedly, only a 6-0 break in one of the minors would be fatal, but with seven cards in each minor, which one to lead was a blind guess.

You will not be surprised to see that he chose a diamond to the ace, and when West trumped in, Perkins’ little joke at trick one had cost him a grand slam.

ANSWER: You have too much for a call of three clubs. Rebid three no-trump, which shows long clubs, but not necessarily solid ones. The simple definition is “a hand that is too good to bid three clubs.” The only alternative would be to invent a reverse to two diamonds.