ACES ON BRIDGE

The bell never rings of itself; unless someone handles or moves it, it is dumb. — Plautus

When this deal originally appeared at the U.S. National tournament held in Philadelphia last year, it was called “Campanologist’s Delight.”

The author indicated that readers of bridge columns are always either advantaged or handicapped — depending on how you look at it — by the bell going off. When faced with a problem, the reader is always led to the critical decision and thus imperceptibly biased in his thought process. He is unable to play as he would have played if he had not been warned he was at the crossroads.

With that in mind, let us look at this deal from the second final session of the Rockwell Mixed Pairs. You sit East, and against three no-trump your partner leads a fourth-highest club five. You are allowed to win the queen and can see nothing better than to return the suit. Your partner wins the ace and returns the seven to clear the suit. Declarer

BOBBY wins the club jack and advances

WOLFF the diamond queen.

Do you win or duck — and if you win, what do you return?

Answer: It doesn’t matter, because you can no longer beat three no-trump! If you failed to play the club 10 at trick one, you won’t beat the game. Your partner either has jack-sixth of clubs, in which case your play doesn’t matter at all, or his actual holding. If the latter, you want to persuade declarer to take his jack at the first trick, after which clubs will be ready to run.

Declarer can survive by not winning the club jack, but will he? I think not!

ANSWER: Don’t get carried away yet. Your partner could still have three small spades and a Yarborough! You have already shown a good hand, and the question is whether to show a strong balanced hand with a call of one (or two) no-trump or to raise spades to the two- or three-level. I’m not convinced that anything more than a cue-bid raise of two diamonds is called for.