ACES ON BRIDGE

The nice part about being a pessimist is that you are constantly being either proven right or pleasantly surprised.

— George Will

When a contract seems to depend on a reasonable break in a long suit, you should always consider what other chances you might have if the key suit doesn’t behave.

In today’s deal, South was constrained to open one diamond. Thereafter, he tried to apply the brakes, but North had the bit between his teeth and would not let his partner out below six no- trump, against which West led the spade king. The contract was certainly reasonable, but South didn’t give it his best shot.

After winning the spade in hand, South returned the spade jack and threw a diamond from dummy. West led a third spade and this time dummy discarded a heart. Declarer next tried the king and another club, but when West showed out, he was in deep trouble since he had discarded potential winners from dummy. He ended up a trick short.

Try leading your low club to the ace at trick two. The next club lead exposes the position, and now when South leads the spade jack from hand, he knows to discard a club from dummy. With the heart fi nesse right, there are all sorts of additional chances for the 12th trick, either from the diamonds breaking, as they do here, or from a squeeze on either opponent, since there are threats in all four suits.

Furthermore, if the clubs had proved to be 3- 2, declarer could still have set up his 12th trick from the spades, with no need to rely on either red suit.

ANSWER: Partners must agree on how to show a weak hand after opener’s reverse. One style is for simple calls to be non- forcing with fourth suit strong. Alternatively, use a two- no- trump call as weak, or even ( my favorite) to use the cheaper of fourth suit and two no- trump as a potentially weak hand. In this last style, you’d bid a forcing two notrump here, planning to raise three no- trump to four no- trump to invite slam.