Bridge

Sometimes a deal will look too easy; that is the time to be especially vigilant and to plan for breakers ahead. In six hearts here, you may count 12 top tricks – but what if hearts do not behave?

When the diamond queen is led, it suggests length, not shortage. So win the diamond king in dummy, then take care to lead to the heart ace and then back to the heart king. The 4-1 split is a problem, but it need not be an insuperable one. You next lead a diamond from the table, and East must discard. (If he ruffs in, it collapses your trump loser and diamond loser into one trick.) When East ducks, it lets you win the diamond ace, then cash dummy’s spade ace and king (pitching your diamond loser) and ruff a spade. Now the club king and ace permit you to lead another spade from dummy to score yet another small trump. In the three-card ending, you have the Q-10 of hearts left and a losing club, which you now lead, ensuring that you can collect the last two tricks, whichever defender takes this trick.

Note that the situation concerning dummy’s entries requires you to win the second trump in dummy and not in hand. If you cash the king of trumps and then the ace, the entry position to dummy will not allow you to reduce your trumps often enough for the endplay to succeed.

Bid with the aces

South holds:

Answer: Redouble for rescue. You can’t guarantee that you won’t be leaving the frying pan for the fire, but when the opponents double you for penalties at a low level, they generally know what they are doing. Redouble suggests both majors and lets partner choose his poison.