ACES ON BRIDGE

“Beauty in things exists in the mind which contemplates them.” — David Hume

As East, defend against four hearts in Margi Bourke’s shoes after your partner leads the club four to dummy’s queen and your ace.

West presumably has the spade ace or king — more likely the ace than the king. If your partner has the club king, you might have four top tricks to cash. You could be forgiven for returning a club before declarer drops his losers on the diamonds.

However, that is a danger only if declarer has a singleton diamond. With two, he will be unable to pitch his loser in time, as West will be ruffing. Even if declarer does hold a singleton diamond, he will still have a passel of spade losers.

Your best shot is to shift to a diamond now, intending to cut the link between declarer and dummy. Declarer wins the diamond jack and leads a heart to dummy’s king. You win and play a second diamond, cutting the dummy adrift. West ruffs the third diamond and exits with the heart nine, leaving declarer to negotiate spades from his own hand. He is doomed to go at least two down.

Any other play at trick two would let the contract through. If you played a club, declarer would ruff, draw trumps and then guess spades on a low-card shift, because partner had failed to lead the unbid suit at trick one. A spade shift would not suffice. West’s best play is to insert the nine, but declarer could give up a spade, win the trump shift (ducked by East), ruff a spade and then ruff a club to hand to give up a trump. You would no longer have a spade to cash.