ACES ON BRIDGE

We ask and ask — Thou smilest and art still, Out-topping knowledge.

— Matthew Arnold After South had gone down in his slam, North pointed out the flaw in his partner’s logic. Can you outplay declarer?

When North opened with a forcing club, South bid then jumped in spades to show a long and at least semisolid suit. A couple of cue-bids followed, then Key-card Blackwood. When North located two key-cards opposite, he settled for six spades, and West led the heart queen.

That lead made establishing the clubs a little more problematic (after a trump lead, declarer can draw trumps, then use the diamond and heart entries to establish clubs, even against the 4-1 break). So South won his heart king and sensibly led a diamond to the king, taken with the ace. East returned a trump, and South won this in hand. A diamond to the queen, then the heart ace for a diamond discard, were followed by a heart ruff to hand. Declarer ruffed his last diamond with the spade queen, but now he was locked in dummy and needed both opponents to follow to dummy’s top clubs. When East ruffed the second, the slam was sunk.

As North remarked, South could have coped with the possibility of a 4-1 club break if he had planned better. After losing to the diamond ace at trick two and winning the trump return, he can re-enter dummy with a top club. Now South’s second club is discarded on the heart ace. After a club ruff, then a spade to the queen and another club ruff, he has set up dummy’s suit. After drawing trumps, the diamond queen is the entry to run the clubs and claim the rest. ANSWER: If the opponents finish in no-trump after a limited auction, then when in doubt, you should tend to lead passively, while still breaking the tie in favor of a major-suit lead to a minor. The heart two is best, so that you don’t risk crashing your partner’s honor. When you have a choice between four-card suits, prefer the one that is headed by a sequence.

bobbywolff@mindspring.com