ACES ON BRIDGE
There exists in the world a single path along which no one can go except you: Whither does it lead? Do not ask; go along it. — Friedrich Nietzsche
In today’s deal, South elects to open one spade rather than one no-trump, after which the auction escalates rapidly, and South has to decide whether to save over four hearts. It would certainly be a smart move, since on a spade lead, four hearts looks relatively comfortable.
On the other hand, four spades on a club lead would prove impossible, but West has a natural top heart lead. Declarer must lose a trick to the two outstanding aces, and he needs to ruff hearts in dummy while trying to avoid losing two club tricks.
South wins the first trick with the heart ace, of course, and needs to ruff a heart at once rather than playing on diamonds. (If he plays the diamond queen at trick two, the defenders can win the diamond ace.
Then, after the best defense of a trump switch from East, followed by a second diamond, declarer can no longer arrange to ruff two hearts in dummy without running into a trump promotion of the spade 10.)
At trick three, South leads a diamond to his queen and plays back a second diamond — this time, ruffing a heart would disrupt his own entries. East wins his ace to shift to the club queen, and South must make his third critical play: He must duck, then win the next, ruff his last heart loser, then discard the club loser on dummy’s diamond winner.
Only now is it safe for declarer to lead a trump. West takes the trump ace, but can no longer cross to his partner and promote a trump trick.