ACES ON BRIDGE

— Akio Morita In this deal from online play, South found himself in the only game contract that stood a chance but failed to make the best of it.

West took the right inference from South’s bidding that he had to have at least 11 cards in his long suits. He found the excellent lead of the diamond ace, planning to take his trick before diamonds could go away on the spades. Declarer ruffed the diamond continuation and needed to set up clubs. He chose to draw two rounds of trumps, ending in dummy, and lead the club jack. Had East made the natural play of covering with either the queen or the ace, declarer would have succeeded. West could score a club ruff, but declarer would enter dummy in spades and lead the club deuce to his six, picking the suit up.

However, East calmly played low on the first club. West ruffed and exited with a spade. South won in dummy and called for the club nine, but East won with the ace and exited with a trump. South was locked in hand and had to concede a further club trick to East.

Declarer knew diamonds were splitting 6-2 on the bidding and would have done better by simply drawing trumps. If they broke 4-2, he could have crossed in spades and led a club to the king, playing for a 2-2 club split. If West had a doubleton heart, he would seem unlikely to have a singleton club as well. On finding the 3-3 trump break, though, declarer could simply play clubs out of his hand to give up two clubs to East.