ACES ON BRIDGE

Opening Lead: Heart seven

“It is the addition of strangeness to beauty that constitutes the romantic character in art.”

— Walter Pater

As South, you bid one spade over East’s opening and then make a fourheart splinter bid after partner’s cue-bid raise. Partner cue-bids five clubs and then commits you to slam once you have admitted to a diamond control. West leads the heart seven.

Without the danger signals from the auction marking East with the heart length and club king, you might simply try to ruff out the hearts and fall back on the minor-suit finesses if they behave badly, but you can do better than that here, knowing East has at least five hearts.You must make the highly unnatural play of ducking the opening heart lead to East’s 10!

East switches to a diamond. You finesse and then play the spade ace and the spade queen to the king. Next, you cash the heart ace and run dummy’s heart jack, taking the ruffing finesse against

East. When East covers, you ruff high, preserving your trump deuce.

Now you lead the spade two to dummy’s four and lead the heart nine for a second ruffing finesse. Finally, you cross to the club ace and discard your losing diamond on the heart six.

The first-round duck in hearts was crucial, allowing you to fully utilize your good spots. After East plays the 10, he has only two cards to cover dummy’s good heart intermediates, and you can establish a trick from your middle cards.

If you had taken dummy’s ace at trick one, you would not have been able to establish a second heart trick. Unable to build a discard, you would have lost a diamond and a club eventually.

ANSWER: Lead the diamond ace. It could be that you have four tricks to take in the red suits, with discards looming on dummy’s clubs. Partner’s one-club opening does not have to be based on strength there, especially since his hand should be balanced. Unless declarer ruffs the opening lead and can reach dummy in clubs to cash the diamond king, this lead should not work against you.