ACES ON BRIDGE

There are some plays that only experts would consider, and some that they would make only against another expert. Consider this example, from a U.S. Nationals in New Orleans. Brian Glubok as West eschewed the opening lead of a top club, realizing he would never be able to give his partner a club ruff. East, Michael Radin, was implicitly marked with some club length, since he had neither made a negative double nor responded one no-trump. So he tried a low diamond. Peter Nagy, as declarer, cashed the top diamonds and played a low heart from dummy to Glubok’s jack.

Glubok deviously played a low club now — and Nagy called for dummy’s queen! Now declarer could ruff a heart to hand and take a spade finesse for his contract. Had he guessed incorrectly, the defenders would have cashed three clubs and set the hand. So why did he follow this line?

Declarer knew that Radin had raised to two diamonds on limited values and four-card support, so Glubok had a minimum balanced hand. Since Glubok might have led a heart from an original ace-king-jack combination, Radin appeared to have one top heart, in which case, West had the rest of the deck. More important, if Glubok had an ace-jack or king-jack combination in clubs, he surely would have shifted to the jack in the hope that his partner had the club ace, with or without the club 10. With those holdings and the queen in dummy, the play of the jack would virtually never cost a trick.