Bookworm Bridge Conundrums #29
This conundrum was written by Patrick O'Connor and was originally publ...
The Aces On Bridge by Bobby Wolff
Against six spades, West hit on the lead of his fourth-highest heart. He was both pleased and surprised to find his partner ruffing the trick and returning a club.
Opening Lead: ♥7
Declarer won in dummy and advanced the spade nine, letting it run, and repeating the finesse when it held.
When trumps turned out to be 4-1, South knew he could not ruff his heart loser on the board. So he drew the last trump and tried to build up a picture of the hand by cashing the diamond ace, going back to dummy in clubs to ruff a diamond, then cashing a second top heart and a second top club. When West was shown to have only one club and one spade, the whole position was known. Since he had started life with six hearts, he must have five diamonds.
Declarer had reduced to a four-card ending after three trumps and two tricks in each of the other suits. Dummy had a top club, a top heart and the doubleton diamond queen. Declarer had a club, a trump and two hearts. (East’s hand was irrelevant, having one diamond and three losing clubs.)
When the club ace was cashed, West had to bare his diamond king (in which case declarer would ruff a diamond and dummy would be high) or pitch a heart. In that case declarer would take dummy’s heart, ruff a diamond to hand, then cash his long heart at trick 13.
Bid with the aces
Answer: 2♠
You are faced with a choice of raising hearts immediately or bidding spades before raising hearts. While a splinter jump to four diamonds (showing a singleton or void in diamonds) is far better than a jump to four hearts, I prefer a simple call of two spades before raising hearts, letting partner know where you live.
This Hand of the Day was originally published on aces.bridgeblogging.com.
