Aces on Bridge

When an opponent is faced with a blind opening lead, do you think it more likely that he has underled a king or a jack? Sometimes the fate of a contract will hinge on such a guess, but often declarer can survive guessing wrong — if he is careful.

Take today’s deal, where you drive to four spades on an uninformative sequence and receive the lead of a low heart. Your immediate reaction might be that if West has underled the king, you must fly up with the queen; while if he has underled the jack, you should play low. Is that addressing the problem correctly?

No, it is not, and the reason is that declarer’s heart 10 plays a huge role in the deal. Without that card, you would indeed put up dummy’s queen, but not today. Imagine that you play low from dummy and guess the position incorrectly. East’s jack forces your ace, but all is not lost if you win the lead and return the suit. West will win with his king and can shift to diamonds, but you have time to put up the king and lose the spade finesse to West. You will win the diamond return, shake a losing diamond from dummy on the heart 10, then ruff a diamond in dummy and draw trumps for your 10 tricks.

If the opposing heart honors were switched and you put up the queen, you would lose the chance to build a home for your slow diamond loser on the hearts.

Incidentally, if the first trump finesse succeeds, make sure not to repeat it until you have taken your diamond ruff in dummy.