Bridge

Over East’s three-level pre-empt South is too weak to bid. However, North can reopen with a takeout double. Although he does not have great shape, he has a decent hand – much too good to sell out here. South now has a pretty fair hand in context and an excellent suit, enough to drive to game, and so he bids four spades. (It is now standard practice in all parts of the world to defend against pre-empts by doubling for takeout. Penalty doubles simply do not come up often enough.)

West leads the club king against four spades, and East carefully overtakes and plays a second and then a third top club. It looks as if South is in trouble. Whether he ruffs high or low, the defenders have a trump trick and an eventual heart winner to come. However, South can avoid trouble by a spot of jujitsu: On the third club he discards a heart rather than trumping, combining his two losers in one trick.

That appears to have solved all declarer’s problems, but when West discards a discouraging heart on this trick, East uncharitably takes it into his head to lead a fourth club, and West’s spade 10 forces a high trump from dummy. Now declarer has to negotiate the spade jack. Since East has seven clubs, it is playing with the odds to assume that West began with three trumps, not two. So declarer lays down the ace and then queen of spades and claims his contract when the jack falls.

Bid with the aces

South holds:

Answer: Pass, rather than making a try for game. Your one-spade call suggested five spades since you would have made a negative double with only four. Because partner might easily have only three spades in a balanced hand and could have jumped to three spades with any sort of extra values, this is not the time to play the hero.