ACES ON BRIDGE
Time is money at rubber bridge. When South found he had a trump loser, he abandoned hope, with three more apparent top losers. Had he played on, he might have been surprised by the result.
When West led the diamond king (rather than the killing club queen). South put up dummy’s ace, cashed both top hearts and found that West held a winning trump.
At this point, South threw in his hand for down one and moved on to the next deal. Technically, it is possible that he might have gone two down, since West could have taken the club queen, cashed the heart queen and played a second club. Dummy would then have had just one trump left to deal with declarer’s two losing spades. But this was a friendly game, and the cards were gathered up for the next deal.
Curiously, if South had not abandoned hope prematurely, he could have achieved 10 tricks simply by scoring all his remaining trumps individually. At trick four, a spade to the ace is followed by a diamond ruff. Then comes the spade king, and a spade ruff for a second diamond ruff. South then tables his final spade, catching West on the horns of a dilemma. If he ruffs, South pitches a club from dummy. So West discards, and South ruffs the spade. Then declarer’s 10th trick comes from ruffing dummy’s last diamond in hand.
Slightly better timing would have been to ruff a diamond at trick two. This would prevent West from discarding his last diamond on the fourth spade if he had begun with 3=3=4=3 shape.
ANSWER: With good support, a source of tricks and a ruffing value, you could reasonably insist on game. With all hands strong in high-card points, you normally begin with fourth suit, so the logical action is to bid four spades immediately. With the minors switched, there might be a case for simply inviting to three spades.