ACES ON BRIDGE

South opens with a forcing two clubs and, after a waiting bid from North, bids his spades. Some modernists play that a jump to three of a major shows four cards in that major and longer diamonds, a hand that is otherwise awkward to describe, and surely more frequent than a solid six-card suit with extras. When North raises to three spades, which is more encouraging than four spades, South asks for keycards. After finding one key-card opposite, South ventures a grand slam try, which is promptly rejected by North, who has only soft cards in the side suits.

Knowing that East does not have an ace, West rejects his singleton diamond in favor of a passive club lead.The slam may appear to depend on the heart finesse, but South can afford to try the diamonds first.

After winning the first club and drawing one round of trumps with the king, South leads the diamond ace and another diamond. West’s discard makes it obvious that East has the rest of the diamonds.

East returns a heart, but South should refuse the finesse. He can see that, thanks to dummy’s good spots, he can set up one of dummy’s diamonds — as long as he plays the hand carefully. After taking the heart ace, South leads a low trump to dummy to lead a diamond through East. He then ruffs out the diamond queen with a high trump and repeats the process to ruff out the king. Declarer finally crosses to dummy with the trump ace to discard his heart queen on dummy’s last diamond, which is now good.

ANSWER: East has denied length in a major and failed to raise his partner’s suit. He presumably has clubs, thus making a club lead unattractive. Take a chance with the spade three instead. Leading a heart feels wrong; partner did not overcall when he had the chance.