ACES ON BRIDGE

All things are full of signs, and it is a wise man who can learn about one thing from another. — Plotinus

At matchpoints, it looks reasonable to play three no-trump here. After all, the defense have eight hearts between them, as well as eight spades, and a heart lead gives you an easy route to nine tricks.

However, today West has a natural spade lead, and then the spotlight is going to be on East, specifically on the partnership lead style. West wants to lead the spade king, to have his partner unblock the jack if he has it.After all, short of some illegal body language, how can East show the jack if all he has is the three and two to encourage with?

It is for that reason that at no-trump, some partnerships play that the lead of a king shows a very good suit, requesting an unblock of a jack or queen. That makes this defensive problem easy.

As you can see, if

West knows to continue spades, he makes declarer’s task in three no-trump challenging. Declarer must duck two spades, then pitch a club from dummy on the third spade. Now what? The answer is to cross to dummy and lead a diamond toward the king, planning to duck if East plays the queen. When declarer’s king holds, he leads back a diamond. If West carelessly follows with the 10, declarer can duck without a care in the world. If West plays the jack, declarer will have to guess whether West started with two or three diamonds. I don’t envy him his having to decide whether to win or duck this trick.

ANSWER: This hand comes down to a simple choice: Do you rebid one no-trump, limiting the hand but running the risk of losing a club fit (especially since partner’s two-club call would be a relay — New Minor, not natural)? Or do you bid two clubs, showing this basic pattern, but in the process perhaps emphasizing suit quality? Put me down in the two-club camp; get your shape right and the rest will follow.