ACES ON BRIDGE

“Logical consequences are the scarecrows of fools and the beacons of wise men.”

— Thomas Henry Huxley

Few pairs have a way to show spades and diamonds over a one-club opening. West started with a simple overcall, then introduced his second suit. But when North pushed on to four hearts, no one had anything more to say. Should East have bid four spades? I think so — he has two huge working cards for his partner, after all.

The spade ace lead would have worked — for a slightly surprising reason. But West led a club, taken by dummy’s ace, and South inferred that East had a top spade or else West would have led one. So West surely had 6-5 distribution.

Dummy’s spades would need to go on the clubs, to be followed by a spade ruff in dummy. If West was 6=1=5=1, a club ruff would also be needed. Declarer began by taking just the trump king. When West followed, declarer reverted to clubs, throwing spades from dummy, followed by a club ruffed low. He then gave up a spade, East charging in with the king to return a trump. That ran to dummy’s nine, and declarer’s next critical move was to lead a diamond to the five and seven. It was essential to keep East, the hand with trumps to play, off lead. West won cheaply and laid down the diamond ace, but declarer could ruff a spade with dummy’s heart queen, then score his two high trumps in hand.

It would not have helped East to play a diamond at trick eight. West would play two more rounds of diamonds, allowing East to pitch his second spade, but South would ruff low and would only need to ruff his spade high in dummy to make it home.