ACES ON BRIDGE

Sometimes a contract can be so poor that you have only one convincing line of play. And sometimes even identifying a playable line can be a struggle! Here, after South stretched to open two clubs, North relayed with two diamonds. When opener rebid two hearts, North raised to three hearts (stronger than four hearts). Subsequently, an exchange of minor-suit cuebids saw South elevated to slam. Did both players do too much? I guess so. When West led the spade four, declarer ducked in dummy, hoping that West had led away from the 10. But East could follow with that card, and South won with the ace. Declarer played two rounds of hearts, then four rounds of diamonds. His hope was that the hand with three trumps would have to follow to all the diamonds. Somewhat to his surprise, the cards cooperated, and two spades could be discarded from dummy. But when declarer played a spade, West hopped up with the queen to return his last heart, and kill dummy’s spade ruff. As is so often the case, declarer’s fatal mistake came at trick one. When East produced the spade 10, South should riposte by allowing it to hold. Now the timing of the hand has changed. East will probably return a spade, but declarer takes his ace now. The key difference now is that after two rounds of trumps followed by four rounds of diamonds, dummy’s last two spades depart as before. But now a spade can be ruffed with dummy’s last trump, so declarer can claim the rest.

BIRTHDAYS

Actress Dame Judi Dench is 82. Actor Beau Bridges is 75. World Golf Hall of Famer Tom Kite is 67. Actor John Malkovich is 63. Singer Donny Osmond is 59. Actress Felicity Huffman is 54. Crown Princess Masako of Japan is 53. Songwriter and former “American Idol” judge Kara DioGuardi is 46. Olympic gold- and silver-medal gymnast McKayla Maroney is 21.