ACES ON BRIDGE

“Russia has two generals in whom she can confide: Generals January and February.” — Nicholas I of Russia

Defend from the East chair after a checkback Stayman auction to four hearts.

West leads the spade ace against four hearts and then shifts to a club. With three sure tricks for the defense, you should focus on scoring another in the trump suit. If South holds jack-nine-fifth, he will probably lead to the heart queen, finesse the heart nine later, and eventually be able to pick up your holding.

To distract declarer, drop the club eight to simulate a doubleton. Declarer wins in hand and plays to the heart queen and your king. You return a passive club. After winning this in dummy, declarer duly leads a heart to the nine. He then crosses to the diamond ace and plays another trump. How should you defend?

Declarer surely has the diamond king to justify releasing dummy’s ace, in which case you can count 10 tricks for him. But if South began with a singleton spade, he may have communication problems. Grab the heart ace and play a third club, removing dummy’s last entry. Declarer can pitch one diamond on the spade king, but you can ruff dummy’s fourth club to defeat the contract.

Declarer (perfectly reasonably) played you for an even number of clubs. If you had only two clubs, you would not have a third to play when you won the third heart. If you had four, dummy’s fourth club would stand up. Had you followed up the line in clubs, declarer could have crossed to dummy in clubs for the third trump lead and come home.

ANSWER:

It is worth overcalling one spade here. You have a good suit and enough shape to make a sacrifice potentially worthwhile. The overcall does not consume much space, but it is descriptive. If the spade queen were elsewhere, passing would be better since your defense would have increased and your offense decreased.