“The smiler with the knife under the cloak.” - Geoffrey Chaucer

You may prefer to cover up the East and West cards before considering how you would play the contract of six spades.

The hand does not seem very difficult. With no possible loser except in the trump suit, you should realize that you have two inevitable trump losers if West has all three trumps, but you can guard against East having the three trumps by taking a first-round finesse. Since you cannot avoid one trump loser, you focus on not losing two spade tricks.

That all seems straightforward, but the deal has a history. It comes from the Life Master Pairs played in Minneapolis in 1968. When dummy came down, Gail Greenberg (East) realized that she had only one chance to set the hand, and that was to deflect declarer from following the line described above. How could she do that? By simulating having a singleton to persuade declarer not to take a safety play.

She was fortunate that West had led the two of hearts (low from an odd number, be it one, three, five or seven). Gail dropped the heart queen under dummy’s ace. Declarer now had something to think about. He led a trump from dummy, eventually going up with the ace when Greenberg played low.

Bid with the Aces

South holds:

 Answer: You set up a game-force with your call of two hearts, the fourth suit. Now it is time to raise diamonds, showing primary diamond support, and letting partner decide where to go next. You do not want to repeat your spades – that would show a suit playable facing a singleton.