ACES ON BRIDGE

“You can never plan the future by the past.”

— Edmund Burke .....................

Cover up the East and South cards for this defensive problem.

You might not agree with the original West player’s three-diamond call, asking for a stopper for three no-trump. He seems to be a bit short in the way of spade stoppers for that action. Most players would bid some number of clubs: five if they prize piling the pressure on their opponents, two if they prefer accurate constructive bidding.

Say you lead the club queen against five diamonds to ask for count. With dummy having a singleton, partner drops the nine, showing something in spades. You duly shift to your singleton, which goes to the jack and king. Declarer draws two rounds of trumps before playing the heart ace. How would you defend?

The kill-point has been reached. You must jettison your heart king beneath the ace so that partner can win the next one and get off lead safely. Given that declarer began with the spade 10 (partner followed with the jack), unblocking will lose only when declarer has 4=3=5=1 shape with the heart queen.

Meanwhile, playing low is very dangerous. Declarer would throw you in with the heart king, ruff your obligatory club return in dummy and pitch a spade from hand. Then he would cash the spade ace and take a ruffing finesse in spades and would return to dummy with the diamond 10 to shed his remaining two hearts on the spades.

Once you unblock, declarer cannot avoid losing a trick in each major, for down one.

ANSWER:

I hope you would have responded one heart over one club if your right-hand opponent had passed. Now the question is whether a free bid here shows more than you actually have. It is tempting to double to get both majors in, with a hand that is reasonably suitable for clubs if that is where partner wants to settle. I think I would pass, but I can certainly understand a negative double.