Hand of the day #211
The Aces On Bridge by Bobby Wolff This column aims to amuse, as well as to educa...
The Aces On Bridge by Bobby Wolff
Opening Lead: ♥Q
Consider the play in four spades today, a contract that looks likely to be comfortable until the heart ace turns up offside. The defenders lead three rounds of hearts, forcing you to ruff in hand. Have you formed a plan yet?
Well, if you ruffed the third heart low (sacrificing your only entry to dummy), you can kiss your contract goodbye. You must ruff high, then plan how to dispose
of either your club or diamond loser. One chance is simply to rely on the club finesse after ruffing a fourth diamond high in dummy; but that is no better than a 50 percent chance. Can you do better?
An alternative approach would be to guess to lead out the club ace, then the queen, hoping to draw trumps ending in dummy, then pitch your diamonds on the two winning clubs. Alas, the defenders can lead a third round of clubs when in with the king, ruffing away one of your potential homes for a diamond loser. It would be unlucky to run into this bad club break, but hardly unexpected.
Better still is to cash precisely one high trump, then lead out the club queen. If West wins the trick, you will win the return and unblock the club ace, then draw trumps ending in dummy and claim. If West ducks, you play the club ace, then three rounds of diamonds. You can now arrange to ruff the diamond loser in dummy for your 10th trick.
Bid with the aces
Answer: 3NT
Your partner’s auction suggests 16-18 and real clubs and spades (else he would have opened one no-trump or jumped to two no-trump at his second turn). With less in high cards, he would have simply passed two clubs. You have decent playing strength, enough to move to game, and I guess that three no-trump will play as well as five of the minor. So bid three no-trump now
This Hand of the Day was originally published on aces.bridgeblogging.com.
Claudettelelievre@icloud.com
this bid is a mistake! If North has more than 16pp he should bid 2p not 1p so he has less than 16pp. consequently he can't bid 2nt just because the answer 2cl clarify south has few points!!!!!