ACES ON BRIDGE

As writers become more numerous, it is natural for readers to become more indolent.

— Oliver Goldsmith

Against four hearts, many Wests would have led a trump. But this West decided that the friendly spade layout would see declarer home unless the defense did something drastic, so he tried the diamond three.

From declarer’s perspective, a crossruff was unlikely to work, nor could spades be set up, so it seemed wise to establish dummy by ruffing clubs in hand while establishing diamonds via two finesses. So South called for the diamond nine from dummy at trick one. East was happy to score the diamond jack, and he eventually shifted to the heart jack.

Retaining later entries to dummy in hearts, declarer shrewdly took the heart king and played a club.

West, assuming South had three diamonds from his play to trick one, hopped up with the ace and played a second trump. Declarer won in dummy, unblocked clubs, then finessed in diamonds and cashed the ace. Once the king appeared, South ruffed a club high. Then he finessed the heart eight and drew trumps, for 10 tricks.

Had West ducked the club, declarer would have gone down. To make the hand legitimately, declarer must finesse the diamond queen at trick one, then knock out the club ace. This dislodges the entry to the hand with the long trump. Accordingly, after he scores the spade ace later on in the deal, East cannot lead a second trump. Declarer will be able to cross-ruff the hand, coming to seven trump tricks, two diamonds and a club.

ANSWER: Bid one no-trump, the least of all evils. To support what could be a threecard club suit could easily backfire, and it would be difficult to catch up after passing. Your heart length might translate into a slow stopper, and if this is a part-score deal, one no-trump is almost certainly where you want to play.