ACES ON BRIDGE

After East’s club raise, South might have inferred that North had doubled with long spades; thus, introducing the hearts might be risky despite his promising shape. North did well not to look for a slam but simply to bid four spades. East, however, was not finished and came again with five clubs. North could have been forgiven for repeating his suit, but he intelligently offered hearts as a possible strain. South had an easy pass now.

Against five hearts, West kicked off with the club king. Upon getting an odd count signal from East, he wisely shifted to a diamond, attacking the late entry to dummy’s spades. This in itself might have tipped declarer off as to the bad spade split, but there was more information to come. Unwilling to lose his entry to hand, declarer played the heart jack from dummy. East won the king and continued the accurate defense when he tapped the table with a diamond. South now cashed the heart ace and ruffed a club to hand to pull the final trump. Most players would blithely charge in with the top spades at this point, but this South mentally constructed the unseen hands. Clubs appeared to be 5-5; would East, holding 2=3=3=5 shape, really take a solo venture at the five-level with such a balanced hand? That seemed unlikely on all counts, so declarer pegged him for a singleton spade and bravely finessed the spade 10 for the contract.

Note that even four spades easily could have gone down!