ACES ON BRIDGE

See how you would fare as declarer here after a slightly off-center no-trump opening. (Nothing else is much better.) Partner bids Stayman, and you show your hearts. When West comes in with a helpful takeout double, partner raises you to game.

West kicks off with a trump, and you can identify three top losers, even though West is almost sure to have the spade king. Additionally, the likely bad trump split could leave you with control problems. Attempting two more ruffs in hand will not work if East ruffs in with a high trump at some stage, but something can be done if you combine a ruffing line with the establishment of dummy’s spades.

You should win the heart ace, retaining the queen in hand to overruff East. Without drawing any more trumps, you cash the spade ace and lead another toward dummy. West grabs the king and plays three rounds of diamonds, forcing your hand.

At this stage, you do not have the entries both to ruff dummy’s long spade and draw trumps ending in dummy. You must deliberately surrender trump control instead, cashing the club tops and ruffing a club with dummy’s heart five. Now you lead dummy’s low spade, and East is stuck between a rock and a hard place.

East can either discard, whereupon you score the heart eight and finish with a high cross-ruff, or he can ruff high. But then you just overruff and draw trumps, finishing with dummy’s spade queen.

A club shift at trick four would work no better, so long as declarer is careful. ANSWER: Playing two-over-one, the modern style is to respond two clubs here, to set up a forcing auction. If partner has four spades, you can surely locate your fit at the two-level. Starting with one spade would mean you would have to bid a nebulous three clubs over a two-diamond rebid, which would consume a lot of bidding space. Similarly, over a two-heart rebid, no forcing option would be very attractive.