Bridge

At the Dyspeptics Club, North (a keen judge of his fellow man as well as a true cynic) appreciates that his colleagues tend to overbid their good hands and underbid their bad ones. Accordingly, he took the low road on this deal and only invited to game in hearts, when a lesser man might have driven the hand to game via a cue-bid of two spades at his second turn.

It did him no good, though. On the lead of the spade jack against three hearts, declarer covered with dummy’s queen, but East won the king, cashed the ace, and continued with a third spade. South ruffed, advanced the trump king, which held, and continued with the queen of trumps. East won the ace and played a fourth spade. Declarer ruffed and tried his heart jack, only to find that East still had a trump. South started on clubs, but East ruffed the third round and cashed a spade for one down. The defense had scored two heart tricks and three spade winners

As North did not fail to mention, this was the correct line in four hearts, but in three hearts declarer erred when he ruffed the third round of spades. He ought to have discarded a diamond instead. If East persists with spades, the ruff can be taken in the dummy on the next round. If East switches, declarer can knock out the heart ace and now has an extra trump to protect himself against the force.

Bid with the aces

South holds:

Answer: Bid two hearts. Yes, you may have a minimum hand with only 5-4 shape, but if you can describe your shape accurately at an efficient level, you should take the opportunity to do that.