ACES ON BRIDGE

Live with yourself: Get to know how poorly furnished you are. — Persius

Take the South cards today. Your partner balances over one heart with a takeout double, having too strong a hand for a protective one-spade overcall. He then raises your one-spade advance to three. This suggests a hand that is almost worth a force to game, so you push on to four spades with some confidence.

West leads a third-and-fifth heart three to the king. East then cashes the heart ace before getting off play safely with a diamond. How should you plan the play?

If either black-suit finesse works, you are in clover. However, East is likely to hold both missing kings to make his opening bid. It would be odd to open an unremarkable 10-count when vulnerable.

If East does hold both kings, there is no point in taking either finesse. You should seek to endplay East instead. Cash the spade ace at trick four. Alas, the king does not appear, but you are still in the game as long as East holds a doubleton in spades. (If he has three spades, you have no chance.) Cash the diamonds next, to eliminate that suit. When everyone follows to three rounds of diamonds, you get off lead with a trump, throwing East on play. That compels him either to lead around to the club tenace or give you a ruff-and-sluff. If he were to play a heart, you would ruff in hand and discard the club jack.

Note that you had to cash the diamonds before playing a trump, lest East retain a safe exit card. Again, had West ruffed the third diamond, this line may cost you an extra undertrick, but you never would have been able to make your contract otherwise.

ANSWER: I’d normally introduce my second suit, but a game-forcing jump to three diamonds would be too much, while a two-diamond rebid would too often be passed for me to be entirely comfortable with that call. The compromise is to show my strength with a two-no-trump call. With a 5-4-3-1 pattern, I’d bid two diamonds instead, hoping to introduce my fragment on the next round of the auction.