ACES ON BRIDGE

North-South may have climbed too high on this hand, but they are saved by the presence of a sidesuit eight.

Following Jeff Meckstroth’s advice, South blasts to game when his six-card major is raised, and he buys a reasonable dummy on West’s passive trump lead.

Declarer has eight top tricks and can develop another by knocking out the heart ace. Given the poor combined holdings in the minors, the hearts also need to provide declarer’s 10th trick. But thanks to dummy’s intermediates, South can force two extra tricks, if he retains two trump entries to dummy.

Against most defenders, it would be good enough to let the heart queen ride at trick two. Upon seeing his partner’s count signal, East might panic and take the trick. However, a cooler player would duck, leaving declarer short of entries to establish hearts.

South does much better by the seemingly illogical play of overtaking the heart queen. East wins and shifts to a diamond (a club is no better). Whatever he plays, South must fly up with the ace, or West will win and shift to the other minor. Declarer crosses to dummy in trump and pitches a diamond on the heart 10. West can win and return a diamond, but South ruffs the next diamond high, returns to dummy while drawing the last trump, and throws both his club losers on the hearts.

This might also be the best line of play if dummy had the heart seven in place of the eight. Declarer would then have to hope one defender had the heart eight, in a three-card holding.

“What the people said was, ‘We want eight, and we won’t wait.’”

— George Wyndham, on the construction of Dreadnoughts

ANSWER: Make sure to introduce the unbid major into the game first via a negative double. You can raise diamonds later, even bidding five diamonds over four spades if need be. You cannot outbid the spades in either red suit, but you can help partner identify the nature of the fit by getting hearts into play. If you delay doing that, the suit may be lost.