ACES ON BRIDGE

“It is not enough to have a good mind. The main thing is to use it well.”

— Rene Descartes

In this board from the match between Germany and Russia at the 2010 Europeans, the German South played in four spades after a value-showing redouble from his partner. West started off with three rounds of hearts. East ruffed and returned the trump jack. Declarer then drew trumps, finding that West had eight cards in the majors versus East’s four, so East had length in the minors.

Since a working diamond finesse would probably not suffice, declarer continued with a club to the ace and one to the jack.

South could have played for 3-3 clubs and fallen back on the diamond finesse. However, playing like that would not have gotten him into the daily bulletin. Declarer reasoned that since East surely had more diamonds than West, he probably held the king.

So South rattled off his spades, discarding two diamonds from dummy as West let go of a heart and two diamonds, somewhat unwisely. East, who was in big trouble, shed two diamonds himself and then chose to bare his club queen, giving declarer an easy ride.

Even if East had pitched a diamond, the criss-cross squeeze would have brought home the game. Declarer would cross to the diamond ace and return to hand with the club king to enjoy the diamond queen.

West would have done better to keep his diamonds. This way, declarer might still decide to rely on West, the overcaller, for the diamond king. When West pitched two diamonds, it was all but certain that he did not have the diamond king.

ANSWER: Despite the hand’s flat shape, you should raise to two spades at once. If you were to bid one no-trump and then show preference to spades, partner would imagine you with only a doubleton in support and would often misjudge the hand. If playing a forcing no-trump, the direct raise should promise constructive values. Thus, you kill more than two birds with a single stone.