Bridge

At trick one, defending four hearts, your partner follows with the diamond 10 to suggest four.

Declarer wins with the ace and plays a heart, which you win with the king as partner drops the five.

What do you know about the hand?

Presumably partner has one heart and four diamonds, most likely with either five spades and three clubs, or four spades and four clubs. In either case declarer can’t establish one black suit to discard losers from the other.

Your main concern is that your partner will get endplayed.

That would occur only if declarer can eliminate dummy’s diamonds – and he can do that only if you help.

Suppose you play another diamond now.

South will ruff and play a second trump to you.

Even on a club shift, best, declarer will win in hand, cross to dummy with a third trump, ruff dummy’s last diamond and exit with the king and another club.

Your partner will be thrown in and forced to lead away from his spade king.

After winning the trump king, you can thwart declarer’s plan by cashing the trump ace and leading the club nine.

If declarer crosses to dummy twice to ruff both the diamonds, he will not have any trumps left at the end.

When he plays king and another club, your partner can exit in diamonds – so long as he has remembered to keep his small diamond on the second round of trumps.

Bid with the aces

South holds:

Answer: Rebid one no-trump, not two diamonds, which would promise a six-card suit.

Yes, your black suits may be open to attack, but your rebid shows your hand-type, not stoppers in the unbid suits.

And you do have a balanced hand, regardless of the absence of stoppers.