ACES ON BRIDGE

“Do not say beforehand what you are going to do; for if you fail, you will be laughed at.” — Pittacus of Mytilene

See if you can spot the mistake in today’s deal, in which South competed to the three-level by himself and declared three hearts on the lead of the spade 10, covered by the queen and king. East switched to the heart ace and another trump, won in dummy. The spade jack came next, covered and ruffed. Then declarer drew the final trump and led a club toward dummy. West played small, but South called for dummy’s king. He then cashed the spade nine for a diamond discard, followed by the spade seven, covered by East’s eight.

After ruffing, declarer simply exited with a club. East won and had to shift to diamonds, allowing declarer to finesse the queen for his contract. If East had had another club to play, declarer would have shed another diamond to leave the defenders on lead.

Declarer did well to guess clubs. He had played East for the diamond king to give himself a chance in the ending, and he inferred that East might have done more with an 18-count. Still,

East could have prevailed if he had played small on dummy’s spade jack. If declarer ran it, West would score a ruff, and South would never get to score a spade trick. The contract would now fail as long as West played small on the first club.

It is rarely right to cover in this sort of ruffing finesse position, when your partner has a small trump to ruff with. In effect, covering sets up a slow winner for declarer, whereas ducking gives him the trick immediately, at a moment when he cannot make use of it.

ANSWER: You could bid two hearts, hoping that if the defenders do not lead a trump, partner will be able to ruff some diamonds in dummy. Still, you can easily imagine that the dummy might be nearly worthless on a trump lead. My opinion is that even in a 6-1 spade fit, I will be able to set up trumps or clubs in my hand to go with whatever partner provides. My bid is two spades.