Hand of the day #242
The Aces On Bridge by Bobby Wolff The old-fashioned textbooks tell you to lead k...
The Aces On Bridge by Bobby Wolff
Sitting West, you lead king, ace and a third club against four hearts. South ruffs the third round and plays a diamond to dummy, then a spade to the king and your ace. What next?
Opening Lead: ♣K
The answer is that it does not matter what you do next. You have already let the contract through! Say you switch to a diamond. Declarer wins in dummy, leads a spade to the jack and queen, then draws two rounds of trump and plays to trump the fourth spade in dummy. Since your partner is out of trumps, he can do nothing to stop this plan from succeeding. But you could have prevented it; the key to the deal is to duck the first spade.
Declarer’s general strength and distribution are clearly marked by the bidding and early play. Declarer must have the king-queen of spades, so winning the first spade cannot generate an extra trick for your side. The consequence of holding up the ace is that declarer now has the unpleasant choice of how many rounds of trump to draw before continuing the attack on spades. If none, you will win the spade ace on the second round and give partner a ruff with his heart 10. If South takes two rounds of trump, you will win the spade ace and play a third trump, leaving declarer with an eventual inevitable spade loser. By winning the spade ace, you gave declarer control over drawing trumps; by ducking it, you retained control yourself.
Lead with the Aces
Answer: Lead with diamond
Against small slams, you should normally lead aggressively rather than passively, unless you think you have the contract set on passive defense. Here, a diamond lead may not work, but it is the huge favorite over a club lead (although I might lead a club if partner had had a chance to double a five-diamond response to Blackwood and had not done so).
This Hand of the Day was originally published on aces.bridgeblogging.com.
i assume the problem is "what do you lead?", not bid. If so DK (P must have DQ and a major trick. K rather than low to offer losing options (though there is a risk of isolating the menace)