“Sound the trumpets; beat the drums; Flush’d with a purple grace: He shows his honest face.” – John Dryden

I am always happy to receive well-played deals from readers. Today’s hand is one such example. On this board Marty Hirschman declared four hearts in the second qualifying session of the Senior Swiss Teams at the national tournament in Chicago.

Hirschman won the opening lead of the spade jack in hand and played a diamond to dummy’s ace, ruffed a diamond, then played a heart to the 10 and ruffed another diamond.

Now a heart to the queen disclosed the 3-1 break. Undaunted, Hirschman ruffed out the diamonds, establishing the 10. The problem he had was to hold his black-suit losers to three. The simple line would be to lead a spade to dummy’s queen, hoping that the spade king was onside. But declarer suspected from the opening lead that this was not so. Did he have any other chances? Yes, so long as East had begun with a doubleton spade king.

In this ending, South led a spade and guessed to duck it to East’s bare king. East could now cash the two top clubs, but what could he do next? If he returned his trump, declarer would win and dummy would be high. So he played a club for the ruff-sluff. Hirschman ruffed in dummy, pitching a spade from hand, and played the diamond 10. Whether East ruffed or not, declarer had the rest for a 12-IMP pickup when four hearts went down at the other table.

Bid with the aces

South holds:

Answer: Unless your partner’s pre-empts are so wild that you think the penalty in four diamonds might be substantial, you should consider bidding four clubs here. This shows a raise to four diamonds and asks for a club lead against the opponent’s final contract. As a passed hand you cannot hold just clubs, or you would have pre-empted initially.