Hand of the day #151
The Aces On Bridge by Bobby Wolff We saw yesterday that there is rarely any hurr...
The Aces On Bridge by Bobby Wolff
In today’s deal North’s one-spade response denied a major.
Opening Lead: ♥4
Since East had not doubled that call (to show spades) convinced West to look elsewhere for her opening salvo against three no-trump. With dummy having shown length in the minors, she opted for the heart four.
Declarer naturally played on clubs, and placed the heart length to his left. He planned to start with a club to the king, then finesse the second club into East, the safe hand, later on. South took dummy’s ace, East encouraging with the eight, then played a club to the king and ace. West persisted with the heart queen, ducked as East dropped the six, followed by a third heart to the jack and ace. Declarer was about to finesse the club nine for the avoidance play when he stopped to consider the heart layout. Surely the defense would not have blocked the suit when West began with queen-10-nine-fifth. For all they knew, declarer could have won the second round, leaving the suit blocked.
Accordingly, if anyone had five hearts, it was East. He duly played a club to the queen, chalking up two overtricks. East could have done better at convincing declarer that it was West had five hearts. When he encouraged at trick one, he in effect showed an honor, so he had to play the card he was known to hold – but at trick two, simulating an original jack-eight-six. Withholding the heart two was also necessary to retain the deception that West’s lead was fourth-highest from five.
Bid with the Aces
Answer: Pass
A raise to three spades should show some realistic game interest here. However on this occasion the auction is not competitive, in that West will not be bidding again normally, so it is just about whether your side has a game on or not. This is highly unlikely, even with your two fillers, so I would pass here.
Since when does an opening bid
include a 4 c major?