ACES ON BRIDGE

There is no real ending. It’s just the place where you stop the story. — Frank Herbert

South wins the spade lead against four hearts and sees four potential losers. He could simply play on clubs himself by leading one to the queen and then another to the 10. This will lose only when West holds the club king and East the club jack. Declarer can do better by eliminating the pointed suits first, planning to endplay a defender to open up clubs in the ending. At the very least, declarer will have learned more about the distribution along the way.

Declarer leads a diamond to the nine at once while he still has plenty of trump entries to each hand. East wins and returns the diamond ace and another diamond. Declarer ruffs that, ruffs a spade in hand, leads a trump to dummy and ruffs a further spade. He then returns to dummy with a heart, drawing the last trump.

Now declarer can make his club play, and he is conveniently positioned in dummy. East has turned up with the spade king-jack and diamond ace, so he cannot hold the club king for his weak-two opening. Declarer should try to duck a club to West. He leads a club and inserts the eight. West wins cheaply but must then either lead back into the split tenace in clubs or yield a ruff-and-discard for declarer to pitch a club from hand.

East could make declarer’s life more difficult if he had the club nine, by inserting that card. Declarer would then have to guess whether to cover with the queen, losing if East held the club jack, or play low and go down if West had the king-jack.

ANSWER: You do not have enough for game in your own hand, but you must take the risk and bid four hearts.You cannot count on partner to bid with a reasonable hand since he probably has some spade length. Just because a call is dangerous does not give you the right to avoid taking that action.