ACES ON BRIDGE

“Experience is a good teacher, but she sends in terrific bills.”

— Minna Antrim

In today’s deal, North bid Drury as a passed hand, advertising a good raise to two spades, and South issued an amorphous game-try of two diamonds. North thought he had a maximum for his original pass, so he took a shot at four spades.

Most West players would lead a trump, but this one tried a diamond. Declarer won that in dummy and led a club to the jack. He knew the diamonds could wait, and this move might persuade West to shift to hearts, or it might result in the defense blocking the clubs.

Upon scoring the club queen, West got off play with a trump. Declarer won with the ace, crossed to the diamond king, ruffed a diamond and then laid down the spade king, expecting to claim on a 3-2 break.

When East showed out, declarer’s communications were in dire straits. He found a neat way to succeed despite this, though. After crossing to the spade queen, declarer led a winning diamond, discarding not a heart, but a club from hand. West ruffed and cashed the club ace, but now he had to shift to hearts, giving declarer an entry back to dummy and an extra heart trick, as long as he could guess the position.

Having noted West’s unusual choice of a diamond lead, declarer placed the heart king on his left, believing that a four-card heart suit without the king would make for a far more palatable opening lead than a diamond from queen-10-low.

Once the heart queen held, declarer had his game bonus, the earlier setback notwithstanding.

ANSWER: With such good support, I’d stretch to make a limit raise in diamonds via an inverted minor, if we play them. The most likely game is three no-trump, so I’d normally like to have an 11-count for such a bid, but the fifth diamond and intermediate cards more than justify the optimism. If partner rebids two no-trump, I will pass. Over any other action, a three-diamond call will limit this hand nicely.