ACES ON BRIDGE

As South, you double one spade and rebid two no-trump over your partner’s response, to show about 19-21 points. Partner gives you one more for the road.

When West leads the spade four, you count only five top tricks.You can score one more in hearts and hopefully three more in diamonds by taking a finesse through East, who is likely to hold the diamond king. The question is: How can you get to dummy to take that finesse?

With only 14 points out, East should hold the heart ace, but you can still succeed as long as that ace is doubleton or singleton. Lead out the heart queen from hand at trick two. If East holds up, you will duck out his ace on the second round. After he wins with the heart ace and clears spades, you can enter dummy with the heart king to tackle diamonds.

Be careful, though! You must remain in dummy for a further finesse, should

East’s diamond king be twice guarded. The key is that you can also allow for king-fourth on your right, specifically by leading the diamond nine. When that wins, you advance the diamond queen, holding the lead in dummy for a third diamond finesse. If you were to start with the diamond queen instead, East would play low. After that start, playing the three from hand would see you forced to win the second diamond in hand, and you would be unable to reenter dummy. Meanwhile, unblocking a middle card on the first round would let East cover the nine on the second round.

ANSWER: Raise to four spades if non-vulnerable. Even though you have a great deal of defense against hearts, the opponents have so much power that they could easily have a slam on in diamonds (or even clubs). Boosting to game will make it much harder for the opponents to get together. Yes, you may be doubled and set, so if vulnerable, I might bid just three spades.