ACES ON BRIDGE
“A desperate disease requires a dangerous remedy.” — Guy Fawkes
At the 2023 Summer NABC in Chicago, South might have jumped to four clubs to help his partner at the five-level, but instead he ignored East’s artificial call (to compete in a side suit) with a jump to four spades. Declarer ruffed the second diamond and needed to take a major-suit finesse. Rather than leading out the spade ace and jack to force a spade entry to North, declarer cashed the club ace-king and continued with a third round. East could see his partner might be endplayed, so he ruffed the winning club jack and played a heart through.
Had declarer played low now, West would have won and stuffed South back in hand with the heart ace to broach trumps from that direction. Declarer instead took the heart ace right away and returned the suit. Now West had to allow declarer an entry to dummy for the spade finesse. Nicely done.
In the other room, despite having no extras and low defense, West doubled four spades. Now South believed the spade king was on his left, as West surely had to have extras. So he gave up on the trump finesse in favor of trying to endplay West. He cashed the spade ace and club ace-king before exiting with a trump. He hoped West would win and be forced to lead a red suit.
To South’s disgust, East produced the spade king and played a heart through for down one. Note that a club shift from West at trick two preserves an exit card in diamonds and defeats the game legitimately. However, this would annoy the opponents much less.
ANSWER: You can either make up a two-club bid, since you are happy for a preference to diamonds, or you can rebid one no-trump. If, like me, you often raise with three-card support, partner is less likely to repeat his suit over one no-trump, so you can afford to bid that with a singleton. A call of two diamonds shows six but is not absurd here.
If you would like to contact Bobby Wolff, e-mail him at bobbywolff@mindspring.com. Copyright 2024, Distributed by Universal Uclick for UFS