ACES ON BRIDGE

“What’s drinking? A mere pause from thinking!”

— Lord Byron At both tables in a teams game, West began with the top clubs against four spades. Both declarers ruffed and then drew trumps with the king and ace. But the first declarer continued with the diamond ace and another diamond. He had to concede down one after East gained the lead in hearts and cashed out.

At the other table, declarer continued with the heart ace and another heart. West knew that his partner’s double of three hearts was based on a doubleton queen in the suit, so he rose with the king and continued with the heart jack.

Declarer ruffed. He knew West had six hearts, two spades and at least two clubs, and therefore fewer than three diamonds. Since a 3-2 break would be no problem, he needed only to protect himself against West having begun with a singleton or void in diamonds.

His answer was to lead a low diamond from hand and insert dummy’s nine.

East took this with the diamond 10 and did his best by returning the diamond seven. Declarer inserted his eight and claimed the rest to make his contract.

Of course, if East had exited with a diamond honor instead of the seven, declarer would have taken it in dummy, with the diamond ace-eight poised over East’s remaining honor-seven.

Note that if West had produced an honor on the first round of diamonds, declarer would have won in dummy and returned a diamond toward his hand, with the intention of covering East’s card as cheaply as possible .This would again ensure three diamond tricks.

ANSWER: The unbid suit may be where your side’s tricks come from. But it could also be that leading diamonds would give declarer his ninth trick. It seems wiser to lead the spade seven, trying to exploit declarer’s shortage for a lethal diamond shift. At pairs, I would surely lead a spade.

If you would like to contact Bobby Wolff, email him at