ACES ON BRIDGE

I would rather be right than president.

— Henry Clay

Today’s deal comes from a Senior European Pairs. West was Jose Damiani, president of the World Bridge Federation from 1994 to 2010. He was previously president of the French, then the European Bridge Federation, and he has poured innumerable hours of his own and his company’s time into improving bridge worldwide. Damiani is also a fine player in his own right and is good enough to have represented France. As this deal indicates, he has an imaginative streak too. North-South were playing an aggressive style of opening, and the response of two diamonds was game-forcing. What would you have selected as your opening lead here? Damiani’s choice of a low spade worked like a charm. Declarer, distracted by the dangers of losing a spade cheaply, made the sensible play of winning in dummy to pass the diamond nine. Damiani won this and led another low spade! Again, declarer followed a rational line when he took this with dummy’s honor, assuming that East would have a doubleton spade honor, given the play in the suit thus far. Then he repeated the diamond finesse, and when the bad split in diamonds came to life, he could not prevent Damiani from taking his six winners, for two down and a fine score. Had Damiani led or shifted to a top spade, declarer would have escaped for down one at worst, and a much better result, since many other North-South pairs had overbid in diamonds or no-trump but had failed by just one trick.

ANSWER:

Do not mess around; jump directly to four spades. You have lots of aces, good trumps and a source of tricks. Game will stand a fair chance opposite an array of minimum hands. An exploration to three hearts might help you find a 4-4 fit, but it isn’t certain that hearts would always play better, even then.