ACES ON BRIDGE

Weeded and worn the ancient thatch Upon the lonely moated grange.

At the Philadelphia Spring Nationals, David Grainger was the hero in this deal from the Jacoby Open Swiss Teams. Declaring four hearts, he won the low diamond lead and played three rounds of spades, discarding a diamond. West ruffed the third spade and returned a diamond. Put yourself in Grainger’s shoes: You ruff and … what’s your plan?

Grainger inferred East’s likely shape as 4-1-6-2, since if East had had a singleton club, his partner would have known to give him the ruff. So he needed to find East with a singleton heart honor. Accordingly, South cashed the heart ace, dropping the queen, then led a club to the jack.

Declarer next ruffed a spade with the heart jack, leaving West no good options. In essence, he was squeezed in three suits, one of which was trump. An overruff or an underruff would clearly have been fatal, so

BOBBY West chose to discard

WOLFF a diamond. Declarer now simply led a trump toward dummy’s 10 and was home no matter what West did, since South could draw the last trump sooner or later, then give up a club.

If West had pitched a club instead of a diamond, declarer would have led a club toward dummy. If West had risen with the club ace and led a diamond, declarer could — for example — pitch a club from dummy and ruff in hand. Then the club king followed by another club act as surrogate trumps, limiting the defense to just one more trump trick.

ANSWER: The fact that your right-hand opponent has shown four spades shouldn’t stop you from simply raising to two hearts, the value call on your hand. Although your trumps are weak, your defensive values aren’t that remarkable and your overall hand is just fine for the simple raise of hearts. Don’t pass and back in later; that lets the opponents establish their optimal fit and level too easily.