Hand of the day #145
The Aces On Bridge by Bobby Wolff “An umbrella is of no avail against a Scotch...
The Aces On Bridge by Bobby Wolff
When I started playing bridge, there were no world championships for women, let alone for seniors and juniors. Times have changed. All the deals this week come from a relatively old Junior World Championship in Florida. Since then, many of the participants have gone on to fame and maybe even to fortune.
Opening Lead: ♣6
Counting is one of the most important exercises at bridge, but sometimes you have to combine the exercise with a fair amount of inference and conjecture.
In the semifinal match between Israel and Italy, both tables made 4♠, but the Italian declarer, Matteo Mallardi, had the tougher task.
While the Israeli declarer had plenty of time on a trump lead to play on hearts, Mallardi had reached four spades after the Israeli East had the chance to double an artificial club bid.
On a club lead to the ace and the accurate switch to the ♦J, declarer won in hand and drew two rounds of trumps. Now it looks to be a blind guess as to how to play the hearts, but West’s low-club lead implied he did not have two of the top three honors in that suit. Since East, a passed hand, apparently had six decent clubs to the ace and queen plus the ♦J, he had no room for the ♥A or he would have opened the bidding. So Mallardi led a heart to dummy’s king for his 10th trick.
Lead with the Aces
Answer: Lead a heart
“When in doubt, lead your best suit” may be a trifle too simplistic. But here, if you lead a heart and find your partner with a high honor, you may be able to establish something. Any other lead either requires partner to deliver rather more or may hurt your own side and not establish anything.
This Hand of the Day was originally published on aces.bridgeblogging.com.
bid 2nt is wrong!