ACES ON BRIDGE

Opening Lead: Spade three

As South, you reach three no-trump, and West surprises you by leading a low spade. Plan the play.

You should look to set up diamonds, but you won’t have time to set up a club as well, with the defenders able to establish two spades to go with their top diamonds.

The best way of handling the diamonds is to lead twice toward your hand, thereby picking up the suit not only when they are 3-3 or the 9-8 are doubleton, but also when East holds an honor doubleton or ace-king-fourth.

Grabbing dummy’s spade ace would make it easier for the defense to run the suit, so you play low from dummy. East wins with the king and helpfully shifts to a small club. You take West’s 10 with the king and play a diamond to the queen. West wins with the king and continues with the spade queen.

If West has found a great lead from Q-7-3 holding the diamond ace-king, you must duck to cut the defensive link in spades. However, that will prove disastrous if East started with king-10-fourth in spades and the diamond ace. You should take the ace, preserving dummy’s nine as a stopper, and then lead another diamond toward your hand. East’s diamond ace beats thin air, and the defenders have only one spade to cash. Success!

If West had continued with the spade seven at trick four, you would have had to guess what to do. Inserting the nine would be necessary today; taking the ace would block the suit on some layouts but would cost the contract here.

ANSWER: Lead the club seven. It does not pay to lead aggressively around to a strong hand; a spade or diamond lead is more likely to give away a trick than set up winners. Play the long game and lead a passive club, specifically what you hope will be a readable seven. The loss of a tempo against a notrump part-score is less likely to be critical than the loss of a trick.

If you would like to contact Bobby Wolff, email him at bobbywolff@mindspring.com