ACES ON BRIDGE

‘Curiouser and curiouser,’ cried Alice.

— Lewis Carroll

South has a tricky call after EastWest’s spade barrage. An immediate three-heart overcall would be an underbid, so South starts with a double, intending to pull a three- or four-club bid to hearts. When West competes to three spades, South balances with four hearts. With known short spades in dummy, there should be some kind of heart fit available.

West leads the spade queen, and declarer can see 10 tricks: a spade, four trumps and five diamonds. He does not even need a spade ruff. However, if declarer were to take the spade ace and start drawing trumps, he might find himself with too many spade losers. Declarer could ruff a spade before starting trumps, but that would fail on this layout too. West would win, cash two spades and then lead a fifth spade for East to ruff, uppercutting South’s trumps. West’s heart nine would thus be promoted to the setting trick.

Declarer could try ruffing two spades in dummy. However, he would need to use the diamond suit as a reentry and play a second diamond after scoring the second ruff, lest he lose control. The problem there is that

West would score a cheap diamond ruff, give East a spade ruff and then ruff the third diamond, too.

The way for declarer to retain control is to duck the first spade! He can ruff the next spade in dummy, preserving his ace, and then simply draw trumps. The defenders have no communications to take their uppercut, as declarer has retained the spade ace.

A trump shift at trick two sees declarer simply draw trumps and take 10 tricks.

ANSWER: You could argue that you only have enough for one action and so should double to bring three strains into the picture rather than just one. However, with such good spades, I would rather overcall one spade so as to not miss a 5-3 fit. In general, you should double only with limited values and a five-card major only when it looks like a four-carder (or, rarely, on minimum hands with five hearts and four spades).