“Suffering isn’t ennobling; recovery is.” – Christiaan Barnard

Six hearts looks like a fine contract here, despite the opposition bidding. After South wins the club-queen lead with the king and lays down the ace of trumps, West’s discard reveals the bad break.

With a sure trump loser, declarer needs to get diamonds going to take care of some of his black-suit problems. He needs East to have a 4-4-3-2 shape. So South plays a diamond to dummy’s ace and ruffs a diamond, then throws a club on the spade ace and ruffs a spade.

A third diamond sees both defenders following and confirms that West began with 5-0-3-5 shape.

After another spade ruff, dummy’s club ace is played, reducing to an ending whereby dummy has the heart jack and three diamonds, declarer has the K-9 of trumps and a losing spade and club, and East three hearts to the Q-10 and a spade.

When a good diamond is now led from the table, East has no winning option. If he ruffs with the heart 10, South overruffs with the ace, ruffs the spade nine with dummy’s last trump, and then leads a diamond. Whether East ruffs high or low, South will score his 12th trick with the heart nine.

Conversely, if East discards a spade, so does declarer, and another diamond follows. East ruffs with the heart 10, South overruffs with the ace, then ruffs his remaining club with dummy’s jack. East overruffs, but declarer takes his 12th trick with the heart nine.

Bid with the aces

South holds:

Answer: You have enough values to want to get both major suits in if the opponents compete to the two-level. So start by bidding one spade so that you can bid hearts efficiently later on. If you begin with one heart, you won’t be able to bid spades conveniently.