ACES ON BRIDGE

When Jeff Aker and his teammates — Doug Simson, Bryan Maksymetz and Larry Chao — won the Monday Compact Knockout, Bracket I at San Francisco, this deal materially helped their cause. Against four hearts doubled, West led his singleton spade to the king and Aker's ace. A diamond to the queen and ace allowed East to give his partner a spade ruff.

Aker now ruffed West's continuation of the club ace and led a heart from hand. West correctly split his heart honors, so Aker took the heart 10 with dummy's king, then finessed in diamonds by leading to the 10. He could next cash the diamond king to pitch dummy's spade for his fifth trick.

Aker next ruffed his diamond as West pitched a club, then ruffed a club to hand. Now if Aker had led his top spade, West would have ruffed high and returned a trump, leaving South with a spade loser. Instead, Aker played his low spade. It would not have helped West to ruff high, because Aker would have had only winners left. So West discarded another club, and Aker ruffed the spade in dummy, ruffed a club to hand, and cashed the heart ace for his 10th trick.

Can you spot the defense that East-West missed? East had to return the spade jack rather than a low spade at trick three. Now declarer cannot discard the spade from dummy on the diamond, as it would have been a winner that he would be throwing away.

Answer: This hand has the perfect shape for reopening with a double of two hearts. In an ideal world, partner would have a penalty double of two hearts and sit for the takeout double. If (as is equally likely) partner has a weak hand with a suit of his own, he would simply describe his hand by bidding his suit, knowing you will have support for him.