ACES ON BRIDGE

At his third turn, even though North had denied a four-card heart holding (by not making a negative double), South saw that four hearts could easily be the right spot, given his strong four-carder. If North had three spades, the heart game might be the only making spot. Maybe North should have passed, but with so much in hand, he deemed it better not to risk a bad heart split, hoping that the diamond game would come home on raw power. South had to have more than three diamonds after his three-diamond call.

When West kicked off with a top spade, East astuely dropped the nine to signal encouragement. So, West continued with two more rounds of spades, and declarer had a dilemma: Should he ruff with the eight and risk an overruff, or ruff high and go down on a 4-1 trump split? South chose to trust East’s signal at trick one and ruffed high, swiftly losing the contract.

East had done well, but declarer should not have been taken in. If West really held six spades headed by the ace, king and queen, he probably would have made a preemptive jump overcall of some sort, especially facing a passed partner. Declarer also should have considered that it was a free shot for East to echo with three spades because, given that there were surely no side-suit tricks available to the defending side, a ruff-and-sluff would be relatively harmless.

If West had overcalled two spades, declarer would have been right to ruff the third round high. ANSWER: Lead the spade queen. Three small is not a particularly attractive holding from which to lead in partner’s suit. Lead your strong sequence instead, hoping to skewer dummy’s king. This may be your last chance to lead through dummy, and while the queen lead might cost a trick, it may be now or never.