ACES ON BRIDGE

The superfluities of the rich are the necessaries of the poor. They who possess superfluities, possess the goods of others.

— Saint Augustine Our final deal on the subject of red herrings comes from the 2023 Australian National Open Teams. It illustrates how an embarrassment of riches can trap declarer rather than aiding his cause.

Declarer won the diamond lead in hand and, perhaps thinking that West’s one-heart bid was psychic, laid down the heart ace. Now he was dead in the water.

If declarer believed West had all the missing trumps, his only chance would have been a trump endplay. Declarer must reduce his trumps, so after taking the diamond ace, he knocks out the spade ace. Then he wins the spade continuation and ruffs a spade in dummy. He cashes three rounds of clubs, ending in dummy, before ruffing a diamond. Having reduced himself to just five trumps in hand, declarer leads a low trump from hand.

West wins and gets out with his spade, but declarer ruffs that and continues with another low heart, endplaying West a second time to lead away from his heart king-jack around to declarer’s ace-queen.

The key is to ruff a diamond rather than cashing the king, which would furnish a useless discard and leave declarer with one trump too many in the endgame.

Note that the recommended line also succeeds when diamonds are 7-1 also, assuming spades are 4-4. When declarer sees East show out on the third club, he can ruff a club back to hand instead of a diamond, which would be overruffed. Admittedly, East might return a diamond at trick three on that layout. ANSWER: Do not bother with a competitive three-spade bid. With your extreme shape, you could easily make game facing a minimum balanced hand. A four-heart cue bid would be too much, though. Four spades is the bid. If the club jack were the king, I’d produce a cue bid raise, I think.

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