ACES ON BRIDGE

It is often a danger signal when an expert thrusts a bridge deal scrawled illegibly on a grubby scrap of paper into your hand. Typically, he is giving you a chance to make a fool of yourself, so make sure not to commit to a plan until you have found the trap.

In the deal that follows, a colleague of mine described being buttonholed by an international player and shown just the North and South cards, to play four spades on the bidding and auction shown.

My friend thought he had spotted the theme. He ruffed the opening lead high, then played a spade to dummy’s 10 for another diamond ruff. He went back to dummy with a trump to ruff the last diamond and led a third trump to dummy, then a low club from the board, intending to insert the nine.

When East inserted the 10, the king lost to the ace. The defenders cashed three clubs ending in West, and exited in hearts, leaving declarer needing one of the queen or 10 onside. Today was not his lucky day.

That said, though declarer had taken most of his chances, he could have done better. At trick one, declarer simply discards a heart on the diamond king. West’s best hope is to shift to a trump, but you win, eliminate the hearts, then return to dummy in trump to ruff the diamond nine.

Finally, you go back to dummy with a trump and play the diamond queen, throwing a club from hand. West is forced either to furnish a ruff-and-discard or to lead around to your club king.