ACES ON BRIDGE

“My name is John Wellington Wells. I’m a dealer in magic and spells,In blessings and curses And ever-filled purses, In prophecies, witches, and knells.”

— W.S. Gilbert Today’s deal comes from “Hocus Pocus” by Erwin Brecher, a book in which each deal contains an unusual or unexpected theme. The work also features a series of logic problems as an appetizer for the bridge deals.

As South, you reach slam unopposed. You win a top spade lead with the ace while pitching a diamond rather than a heart. Now you cannot afford to play diamonds in case you run into a ruff, so you must draw trumps in three rounds and concede a diamond trick. Back comes a spade, and you ruff.

The natural play now is to lead to dummy’s diamond queen, prepared to claim the rest of the tricks. When the 4-1 split comes to light, you are short of entries to bring in the diamonds. However, you can ruff a spade to hand and cash the diamond king for a heart pitch. This means that all you need now is the heart finesse, but naturally the author is not going to let you get away with that!

There is a winning line, however — one that does not take away from any of your genuine chances. After ruffing the second spade at trick six, you must cross to dummy with the heart ace in order to lead the diamond queen from dummy. If East were to follow suit, you would revert to the earlier approach. However, when East shows out, you have an additional resource. You can overtake with the king and pass the diamond nine for the ruffing finesse. This means that you still have a trump entry back to hand to cash out the diamonds.

ANSWER: Bid two diamonds, natural and non-forcing. Partner might have only two spades, so you should rely on the safety of your known eight-card fit. If the opponents compete to two hearts, you should bid two spades despite your knowledge that the partnership has fewer than half the deck’s high cards.

If you would like to contact Bobby Wolff, email him at bobbywolff@mindspring.com