Hand of the day #210
The Aces On Bridge by Bobby Wolff Today’s deal is one of the nicest constructe...
The Aces On Bridge by Bobby Wolff
Today’s themed deal was played in the Dutch Premier League.
Opening Lead: Diamond Queen
Against four spades Sjoert Brink led a top diamond. Bas Drijver’s five, suit preference, suggested a club shift. Brink duly tabled the club four, to the king and ace. After drawing two rounds of trumps, declarer then called for a small heart off dummy. Drijver played small, hoping that declarer had king-nine doubleton and was about to misguess the suit, but that was fatal here. West could not continue clubs effectively from his side of the table, giving declarer time to establish a heart trick for a club pitch.
East had needed to fly up with the heart ace then return a club to establish his partner’s club jack, while the hearts remained under control. This is like yesterday’s deal, except the aim is to set up a trick rather than a ruff.
From East’s perspective, while it would not be ideal to clear up a heart guess for South, he was perhaps going to get it right anyway. West would also need to hold the club queen for the heart misguess to matter. Note also that West might have done better to signal strongly for hearts to suggest the king, with a suit- preference diamond 10 discard on the second trump.
Maybe declarer should have tackled hearts a trick earlier to prevent West signaling? Even better would have been to lead the heart jack from dummy -- in case East has the nine, when he would know declarer had no guess after a small-card lead off the board.
Lead with the Aces
Answer: Pass
You could double, but you would not particularly like to force partner to bid at the three level if he holds the equivalent of a weak no-trump. I would pass, although I admit doubling could work well if the next hand is about to raise spades. even so, for this to matter, partner would need extras and be unable to double for takeout.