ACES ON BRIDGE

Today’s deal sees North show both his long suits, after which South drives to game with a call in the fourth suit. North now has an option of rebidding his second five-card suit or of bidding no-trump. However, the decision isn’t close, to my mind. You can always find notrump later, but getting your hand pattern off your chest as soon as possible is never a bad idea. As it happens, South can close proceedings by bidding no-trump himself. When West kicks off with the spade queen, South can see there are at most five tricks available from the majors, so he must develop one minor or the other. The clubs look slightly more promising than the diamonds, but there is a real risk that going after clubs would let East in with the club king for a killing spade continuation. In order to develop the diamonds, South needs only to find the king with West, the safe hand, plus a three-two break. So at trick one, South discards a club from dummy and wins with the spade king. He then plays on diamonds with the intention of keeping East off play. He plans to lead diamonds twice from the South hand, using a heart re-entry when the queen holds. West will be allowed to hold the trick whenever he plays the king. That player can then cash three high spades, but South has the rest. Note that if declarer plays the queen and ace of diamonds, losing the third diamond to East, a spade continuation would defeat the contract.