Hand of the day #187
The Aces On Bridge by Bobby Wolff Every year the Young Chelsea Bridge Club hosts...
The Aces On Bridge by Bobby Wolff
These days the grand slam force is rarely seen because the call of five no-trump is more often used to ask partner to pick a slam. But a jump facing an opening bid still retains its original meaning: bid the grand slam with two top honors
Opening Lead: ♥Q
How would you play today’s seven-spade contract on a heart lead? The lead is inconvenient in that it has taken out one of the late entries to dummy, and you will need to set up the clubs to make your contract.
A simple line would be to win and draw trumps, then play three rounds of clubs, ruffing the third. This line needs nothing but 3-2 clubs or a singleton club queen, but today you would be out of luck. An improvement to this line would be to draw just one round of trumps with the king before playing on clubs in case one hand had both black-suit singletons, but this would not help you today.
The winning line is to realize that you have the opportunity to use your discard on the top heart in dummy to greater effect. What you should do is cash the two top hearts and pitch a club from hand. Now you can take just one top club, ruff a club high, and draw two rounds of trumps ending in dummy. Then ruff another club high in hand, draw the outstanding trumps, and cross to the diamond ace to discard your diamonds on the clubs in dummy.
Bid with the aces
Answer: 2♥
There is no need to panic just because partner has shown a good hand with long clubs and four diamonds. Do not pass in the middle of a forcing auction. Instead, repeat your hearts to show five, and let partner decide where he wants to go from here.
This Hand of the Day was originally published on aces.bridgeblogging.com.