ACES ON BRIDGE
Some problems are so complex that you have to be highly intelligent and well informed just to be undecided about them.
— Laurence Peter
In today’s deal, South might have responded four diamonds to North’s cuebid, since North might just have been trying to find the best fit when holding both red suits. No harm was done, though it resulted in South rather than North being declarer in six spades.
When the defenders led clubs, the duplication of values meant South wasn’t going to find it easy to take a ruff in either hand. Accordingly, the 4-1 trump break did not materially diminish declarer’s chances. He won the club lead and drew trumps in four rounds, East pitching three clubs.
Now whom was declarer going to play for four diamonds? After cashing the diamond ace, declarer decided that East was slightly more likely to have four diamonds than four hearts. However, it was far more convenient for his plans to be in dummy after running the diamonds. So he cashed the diamond king and ran diamonds, coming down to a four-card ending with three hearts and one club in each hand, West holding the same, while East had two cards left in each suit.
The next big decision was whom to play for the heart king. Since West had the length, declarer decided to cash dummy’s remaining club honor and lead the heart eight, planning to let it run. When East played low, so did declarer, and West took his 10 but was endplayed to lead a heart around to South’s queen.
Had East followed with the jack, declarer would have played his queen and finessed against the 10 on the next round. ?
BID WITH THE ACES
ANSWER: Creeping or Crawling Stayman allows you to bid two clubs here and correct a response of two diamonds to two hearts to offer a choice of the majors. Opener tends to pass unless he has three spades and two hearts, so this way you can remove yourself from one no-trump and find a reasonable partscore whatever your partner has.