Hand of the day #281
The Aces On Bridge by Bobby Wolff In action here against France in the McConnell...
The Aces On Bridge by Bobby Wolff
For this week, our deals will all focus on camouflaging the position of the suit led at trick one as a defender. If declarer cannot read the lead, he will struggle to play accurately.
Opening Lead: ♠5
Put yourself in the East seat here. Partner leads the spade five. Make a plan.
Spades seems the most promising avenue of attack. If partner has five of them and just one outside entry, you are likely to be able to set the hand. The stumbling block is that your spades will block the suit if declarer wins the first or second round. If you make the normal-looking play of winning the jack first, lowest of honors, and follow up with the spade king, declarer will know you have the queen too, since you would have played the king then jack from king-jack-low. Thus, he should work out to win the second spade, leaving the spades blocked, then drive out the diamond ace.
You can hide the spade position by winning the first round with the queen and returning the king, as you would from king-queen-low. Declarer is apt to duck, to cut the link on a 5-3 split. This would make the hand if you had started with the diamond ace. Alas, ducking the second spade is fatal on this layout.
Incidentally, from West’s perspective, if declarer had worked out to win the second spade then play diamonds, his best shot would be to duck the first two rounds. If declarer had started with five diamonds, East could then jettison the blocking spade honor on the third diamond.
Lead with the Aces
Answer: ♥2
Lead the heart two. It can pay to lead passively after an invitational auction as the opponents are stretching their values, but with declarer’s having denied a major, a heart lead appeals. Sometimes, the good old fourth-highest is best though I would be the first to admit that leading a top diamond might well work far better.