ACES ON BRIDGE

His honor rooted in dishonor stood, And faith unfaithful kept him falsely true. — Alfred Lord Tennyson

Today’s deal came up in a teams game, where both tables reached the perfectly reasonable spot of six no-trump. In the first room, when the player sitting East saw his partner lead the spade nine, he won his ace and shifted to a club in an attempt to break up any pressure on his partner. A nice try — but not good enough; South won the ace, cashed the ace and king of diamonds, then ran all his major-suit winners ending in dummy. The three-card ending saw dummy with the diamond jack and two clubs, while South had the K-Q-8 of clubs in hand. West had to abandon control of clubs, and the club eight took trick 13.

When the teams scored up, South from the other room proudly announced plus 1,440 as if expecting a swing in. When asked why, South explained how the defense had gone at his table, on the same lead. East had ducked both the first and second spade, so now South ran four rounds of hearts, pitching a diamond from hand, and forcing West to consider his last seven cards. He had to keep three diamonds and four clubs, so he let go of his remaining spade. Declarer cashed his clubs and threw West in with the fourth club, discarding a spade from the board to force a diamond lead away from the queen for the 12th trick.

“Was that how the play went in your room?” asked South. “For all intents and purposes,” responded his teammate, demonstrating once again that truth is very much in the eye of the beholder.

ANSWER: I’d normally compete to two spades, with the fifth trump telling me that our side has at least eight trumps between us. Against that approach are the three small hearts and the fact that my partner would always bid two spades with four trumps unless his hand were extraordinarily unsuitable for that call. He would double two diamonds with extras and three trumps. Still, I’d bid and let my opponents make the last mistake.