Bridge 13/08/2011

There are times when it appears impossible to get at all your tricks for lack of entries to one hand or the other. Can you see a way to overcome this problem here?

North's overcall is easily brushed aside, and partner eventually agrees to let you play in your suit rather than his. North leads the king of hearts, on which South plays the two, signifying an odd number. Seeing that South cannot ruff the third round of hearts North switches to a trump, which you win in hand. What now?

You have six trump tricks, plus two aces. You could ruff two diamonds in dummy to bring the total to ten, but then you cannot also enjoy your heart trick. If you play a second heart to establish the queen before taking your ruffs North will play a second trump. If instead you take your ruffs immediately, using spade ruffs to return to hand, he will eventually win his second heart and exit with a plain card, leaving the queen of hearts stranded in dummy. Can you see a way round that?

North should have at least five hearts for his overcall. If your crossruff extracts all his non-hearts before you play a second round he will have to let you score your queen. So you play ace of diamonds, ruff a diamond, ace of spades, ruff a spade, ruff a diamond and ruff a spade high before drawing a second round of trump. When North follows throughout he is ripe for the plucking: you lead the jack of hearts and if North takes his ace he has nothing to lead but a heart, allowing you to discard your last diamond.

This type of play, where you use an opponent as a route to an entryless hand, is aptly named a Stepping Stone. It is another variation on elimination play where, before giving an opponent the lead, you remove all his safe exit cards.