Aces on Bridge

Liam Milne was able to report a fine play by Barbara Travis from the semifinals of this year’s Australian Women’s Playoff. Travis declared six spades on the friendly lead of the club eight to the jack and queen.

If clubs behaved, 12 tricks would be easy; but West’s decision to lead a club instead of a heart argued strongly that the lead was from shortage — and that West must not have the heart ace, or a club lead would be almost pointless.

With the general idea of playing East for the heart ace, Travis ruffed a diamond in the short trump hand, then drew four rounds of trumps. When West followed all the way, she provided additional weight to the theory of club shortness in that hand. Dummy discarded a heart and a club, while East discarded a low heart, a low club and the diamond jack.

Travis now played the last trump and the diamond king, coming down to three clubs and the bare heart king in dummy. East, holding the doubleton heart ace and three clubs, had no choice but to come down to the bare heart ace. Trusting her judgment, Travis cashed the club 10 before exiting with a heart. East had to win and, with only clubs left, was forced to bring dummy back to life. From declarer’s perspective, the only thing that could have made this hand any more spectacular would have been if both heart honors were offside!

In the Seniors, Open and Women’s events, most declarers who received a club lead reduced themselves to guessing hearts — and not all of them did so correctly.