“Disinterested intellectual curiosity is the lifeblood of real civilization.” - George Trevelyan

When I have need to search my bridge files, I am often surprised when I re-examine a deal that I have not looked at for a few years. When I played the deal shown today, I flattered myself afterward that I had done well, but on recent review I found that I had overlooked an important point.

Four hearts is obviously hopeless as the cards lie, but fortunately I was in three no-trump. West led a spade to East’s ace, and a low spade was returned. I put in the jack, and when it held, I seemed to have tricks coming out of my ears. But since I had no re-entries to my hand to cash the spade king, I was awake enough to lead a diamond to dummy’s 10 at trick three. If East ducked, he would lose his diamond trick, and if he won his queen, I would have the diamond eight as a re-entry allowing me to cash my spade winner for a sure ninth trick.

Subsequently, I saw that both East and West could have done better. West could and maybe should have led the spade nine – since he had promised spade length in the bidding. Had he done so, marking the spade K-J with South, East could have taken the first trick with the ace and shifted to the club 10. Whatever declarer did now, he had to lose a diamond and four black-suit tricks.

Bid with the aces

South holds:

Answer: On auctions of this sort it is easy to overthink the problem. You may be able to defeat their game, but putting them under maximum pressure as fast as possible will probably be the winning tactic. Just jump to five clubs and let them sort things out from there.