ACES ON BRIDGE
It is folly to expect men to do all that they may reasonably be expected to do.
— Richard Whately
In today's deal, South's three-no-trump call was an attempt to protect his spade tenace.An alternative would have been a stopper-showing three spades instead, to highlight the danger of the diamonds. After all, if North's pointed-suit holdings had been interchanged, five clubs would have been far better than three no-trump. Also, curiously, three no-trump by North likely would have made on a low spade lead!
Against three no-trump, West led the second-highest spade eight to deny an honor in the suit. This went to the jack, king and ace. Declarer could see that even taking four club tricks would prob-ably not be enough. The defense would establish the spade suit and come to five winners before he had nine.
So South decided his best chance was to sneak a heart trick first. If the heart king held, he could turn to clubs with the game-going trick in his pocket. Alas, East won the first heart and persevered with spades. Not just any spade, though. South was marked with the spade queen, and if he had started with ace-queen-six, the "nor-mal" current count return of the spade three would block the suit, assuming declarer played low.
So East put the spade 10 on the table. Declarer ducked that and won the third round, hoping for a 6-3 split. He then turned to the clubs, cashing the ace first in case West miraculously had the singleton king. But no — East won the second club and had a fourth spade to lead to West, who cashed out for down one.
ANSWER: I would raise to four spades at any vulnerability. Partner likely has a singleton heart, and our own singleton should allow him to cross-ruff the hand. We definitely want to sacrifice over four hearts, so we should do so immediately, making life as difficult as possible for the opponents.