ACES ON BRIDGE

“The scars of others should teach us caution.”

— Saint Jerome

When West preferred to keep quiet rather than show his two-suiter, South followed a descriptive and practical sequence to slam. Even if the defenders had two hearts to cash, they would have to find the lead. The play, on the other hand, did not quite go according to plan.

After taking the heart queen lead in dummy, declarer erred by leading a diamond to the king. He should have led the diamond ace to allow for the 5-0 break — he could never pick up trump length with West. Had he done that, it would have been easy to finesse diamonds twice through East.

When West showed out, South needed to trap the diamond jack in a trump coup. He tried a spade to the king and ace. Was this best? Declarer might have started on spades by finessing the 10, to establish two discards. After all, West would have needed nerves of steel to duck the spade ace here. Once declarer led to the spade king, it was up to East to find the killing return. He duly did so when he led a trump to cramp declarer’s communications.

South tried to recover by winning the nine and then cashing three clubs ending in dummy. He discarded a heart on the spade queen, but now if he cashed the diamond ace before advancing the heart king, East would discard. When declarer led the heart king at once, East ruffed in, and the trump blockage meant declarer was unable to untangle his tricks.

Had declarer finessed the spade 10 at trick three, the extra winner in dummy would have proved critical.

ANSWER: Get your club suit into the game to contest the part-score or find a sacrifice. Partner should not take you too seriously, you hope, as your primary concern in these auctions is to compete effectively. Incidentally, had your partner doubled one heart, some people play that a direct call of three clubs is genuinely invitational, while you could use two no-trump as artificial with a purely competitive hand.