Bridge

As West, on lead to three no-trump, you experiment with an imaginative heart queen, the unbid suit, which runs to South’s king, East contributing the seven. Instead of playing on diamonds, declarer crosses to the spade ace and plays a club to the jack and your queen. What now?

Well, South can have only two club tricks, one heart and three or four spades to cash at this moment. It is possible that you have already set up four heart tricks for the defense with your opening lead, but it is more likely that declarer has a second heart stopper.

If partner’s hearts are established, there is no hurry to play one. If not, they cannot be both set up and cashed, since East cannot hold any side entry. Instead, what you want to do first is tangle declarer’s communications. The best way to do this is to remove his only entry from dummy to hand, so you return the spade eight.

South will surely win the spade in his hand and clear the clubs. You are back in again, knowing declarer now seems to have four tricks in each black suit to go with his heart trick. But look what happens when you win your club 10 and cash the diamond ace!

Declarer must discard a black-suit winner to keep the heart jack guarded. Now you can exit with a spade, and South has to lead away from his heart jack at trick 12: down one.

Bid with the aces

South holds:

Answer: Bid one no-trump rather than one spade. Responding in a major is consistent with holding only a four-card suit here, but you don’t want to run the risk of being raised on three-card support with such a poor suit. Even with 4-4 spades, your side may fare better in no-trump! Bidding one no-trump gets the values and general nature of your hand across nicely.