Bookworm Bridge Conundrums #8
This conundrum was written by John Carruthers and was originally published in t...
The Aces On Bridge by Bobby Wolff
Paul Barden handled the play well in today’s deal from an English national event.
Opening Lead: Spade three
Claire Robinson deemed her hand too strong for a one-spade overcall, which might cause her side to miss a heart fit. She doubled instead, then raised Barden’s free bid of one heart to game.
West might have led a diamond, but he chose his singleton spade instead, running to the queen and king. Barden read the lead as a singleton, and saw he was at risk of losing a spade ruff to go with two trump tricks. The club loser was unavoidable, but he could get a diamond away on the spades even in some scenarios where the diamond king was offside.
Drawing trumps seemed logical, and the normal way to tackle this heart combination is to finesse the heart 10, making an extra trick when West holds the queen. However, declarer did not need to hold his heart losers to two here; he only had to avoid losing the first round to East for a spade ruff.
West could hardly have ace-queen-fourth for his choice of lead, but he rated to have the ace. Barden duly put up the heart king before continuing the suit to East’s queen. He now lost only two hearts and a club trick.
Had West won the second trump with the ace and switched to diamonds, declarer would finesse the diamond jack, confident that if West had ace-doubleton of hearts, he needed the diamond king to make up his opening bid. If he had the heart ace-queen, the diamond finesse would be the only chance.
Lead with the Aces
Answer: Lead the heart seven
You might lead the queen from queen-jack-nine-fifth, but the risk of blocking the suit is far greater when you have six of them. What is more, you have a side entry, so you do not necessarily need partner to have three hearts. Honor-doubleton should be enough, and leading low will facilitate unblocking the suit.
