Bridge
Pedro-Paulo Assumpcao, Brazilian World Team Olympiad champion, contributed several tips on the play of the hand to the BOLS Bridge Tip Competition. This is one of them.
In four spades, you win the opening heart lead with the queen, East signaling with the seven. You hope for a 3-2 trump break, but you may still need to look after your fourth diamond. The plan, therefore, must be to draw two rounds of trump, give up a diamond, and ruff a diamond if they break 4-2.
However, if you start with two top trumps and then give up a diamond, West will cash the spade queen upon winning a diamond trick. No good. Suppose you begin with three rounds of diamonds. Still no good. West plays a fourth diamond and East overtrumps dummy. The answer is to start by ducking a diamond. Then you can cash both top spades followed by the ace-king of diamonds and a diamond ruff if necessary. Even if somebody trumps one of your high diamonds, you will survive. They will be using the master trump, and there will still be a trump in dummy to care of declarer’s fourth diamond.
The key to the way declarer attacks the side suit depends upon the size of dummy’s highest trump. If dummy had, for example, queen-jack third of trumps, you would cash just the spade queen, then lead out the top diamonds and give up a diamond. If necessary, you would ruff a diamond in dummy when you regained the lead.
Bid with the aces
South holds:
| •Q 9 4 | |
| •J 10 8 | |
| •Q J 5 3 | |
| •Q 10 4 |
| South | West | North | East |
| 1 • | Dbl. | 1 • | |
| ? |
Answer: Bid one no-trump. This suggests diamond stops (the suit partner is likely to be short in) and 6-10 HCP, without promising much in hearts, one of the suits partner has implied length and/or strength in. You are too good to sell out here without letting partner know that it figures to be your side’s hand, not theirs.