ACES ON BRIDGE

In today’s pairs deal, as NorthSouth had at least 34 points, North did not look for a suit contract. Instead, he was relying on power to make a slam in no-trump when one in a suit might be scuppered by bad breaks. With even a slightly weaker hand, or with the spades and diamonds switched, one could make a good case for bidding Stayman, then offering a choice of slams with a call of five no-trump, prepared to play diamonds, spades or no-trump. On a power auction, a spade lead looked unattractive: Indeed, it would have given declarer his 12th trick here. West sensibly led a passive heart 10, aiming to give nothing away. Declarer could place the heart queen to his right, so he called for dummy’s heart king. He then played the spade ace and another spade. When East threw a low heart, declarer still put in the spade jack from hand, giving up the loser to facilitate a subsequent squeeze. West won and exited with a heart, taken by dummy’s ace. Declarer cashed the spade king, then ran diamonds, ending in dummy. In the four-card ending, as West had only discarded one spade and East had not parted with the heart queen, neither defender could hold four clubs. So declarer’s lowly club seven was sure to score the last trick. Declarer made two spades, two hearts, four diamonds and, finally, four clubs to make his contract. In effect, declarer played to squeeze both hands out of their club guard, even though he knew only one of them could have the suit under control.