ACES ON BRIDGE

Afoot and light-hearted I take to the open road, Healthy, free, the world before me,The long brown road before me leading wherever I choose.

— Walt Whitman

Cover up the East-West hands for today’s deal.

As South, you hear partner jump to four no-trump, showing both minors.Your bid of five diamonds ends the auction, and West leads the spade 10. Plan the play.

You must set up dummy’s clubs, which may require a ruff in hand on a 4-2 break. You are at risk of suffering an overruff in the meantime, though. Maybe you should draw trumps first. You duly cross to the club queen and lead a trump, West following low. Should you finesse the 10 or the queen?

It seems normal to try the diamond 10. However, you do not have a reentry to hand to take advantage of king-jacklow onside. There is little to gain by inserting the 10-spot. In fact, you would not necessarily make it home even if that forced the king. West might hold jack-third in diamonds and a club doubleton, in which case you would concede an overruff on the third round of clubs anyway. If, on the other hand, you finesse the diamond queen and that holds, you will not mind conceding an overruff to the diamond king, which would represent a natural trump trick.

Accordingly, you call for the diamond queen, which holds. Then you cash the diamond ace followed by the club ace. You can now freely ruff a club, establishing dummy’s side suit. The defenders are welcome to a trick in each red suit.

Finessing the diamond 10 would cost the contract on today’s layout. For the record, if you were to switch the diamond king and jack here, the contract would be unmakeable.

ANSWER: You could try three no-trump, which ought to make if partner can provide some help in the heart suit. Alternatively, you can bid clubs at some level (four, five or six?). A third choice is to double and convert four hearts to five clubs. All actions are reasonable, but I would go for a double here, albeit with little confidence.