The Aces on Bridge: Wednesday, 6 May 2026

The Aces on Bridge: Wednesday, 6 May 2026

Barry Rigal
Author

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Books, like proverbs, receive their chief value from the stamp and esteem of ages through which they have passed.

Sir William Temple

Cover up the East-West hands here and decide how you would tackle four spades on a trump lead.
The best plan involves establishing dummy’s clubs, since setting up hearts would require good breaks. You cannot draw trumps beforehand, because you will need them for transportation, so you had better start on clubs right away. Planning to ruff two clubs in hand will fail against a 4-1 trump split. Thus, the best approach is to knock out the club queen.
After winning with the spade nine and cashing the club ace and king for a diamond discard, lead the club jack, pitching your other diamond unless East covers. West wins with the club queen and forces you with a diamond, but you carefully ruff high, preserving two trump entries to dummy. You then cross to the spade 10. If everyone follows, you can draw the last trump and run clubs, making an overtrick. If either defender shows out, you are still in good shape. Just lead winning clubs and later cross back to the spade ace to draw the last trump before enjoying the rest of the clubs.
Of course, if East ruffs in on the club loser, your task is even easier because dummy now has as many trumps as East. You can, for example, simply overruff and cross to a trump in dummy to lead the fourth club and ruff it. Then you go back to dummy in trumps to run the clubs. Alternatively, you can discard your second diamond when East ruffs in.
For the record, you can still survive drawing trumps at once, but you would need to be inspired to do so.

Barry Rigal

Barry Rigal is an English-born bridge player, author, commentator, and journalist who has won major national titles in both the UK and the United States and served as a VuGraph commentator for decades at European and World championships. He has written and edited numerous bridge books and articles and has been President of the International Bridge Press Association, contributing widely to the game’s literature and education.

A109
75
86
AKJ1093
4
Q1096
A432
Q852
N
W
E
S
8762
KJ
KJ1075
74
KQJ53
A8432
Q9
6
Dealer: South
Lead: 4
W
N
E
S
1
Pass
2
Pass
2
Pass
2
Pass
3
Pass
4
Pass
Pass
Pass

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