ACES ON BRIDGE

“I do not want people to be very agreeable, as it saves me the trouble of liking them a great deal.”

— Jane Austen

Today’s declarer took full advantage of friendly defense via some accurate card reading and technique.

South coupled an aggressive oneheart overcall with a sporting effort when he bid on to the three-level. West’s choice of a low spade lead saw South call for the spade 10, reasoning that an underlead of a king was unattractive here. He took East’s jack with his ace and returned the suit. West jumped on the second spade and helpfully shifted to clubs. East took the king and ace, then played a third round to South. Declarer crossed to the diamond ace to pitch his diamond on the spade queen.

By now, declarer knew East surely had four spades to go with his three clubs.

That meant he had at least four diamonds, or he would have opened one club, so East had at most two trumps.

Declarer called for a low heart from dummy, and when East followed low, South inserted the eight. Declarer could now ruff the incoming diamond and advance the heart queen, pinning East’s heart jack to land the contract. The intra-finesse was with the odds. It was twice as likely that East held jack-doubleton or 10-doubleton than king-doubleton, and many Easts might have already gone in with the heart king from that holding.

After declarer’s pardonable misguess at trick one, West could have set the contract by shifting to a diamond at trick three. That would keep the defense a tempo ahead by paving the way for diamond forces.

ANSWER: Bid one no-trump. This shows a balanced hand with about 8 to 10 points and thus describes your collection to a T. Do not complicate matters with a one-diamond response. You are not afraid of either major-suit lead and have no reason to assume the hand will play better your partner’s way up.