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
Stuart and Gerald Tredinnick are one of the pairs of twin brothers who have represented Great Britain successfully. Among other things they were part of the team that won the world junior championships 20 years ago.
Opening Lead: ♠Q
Here is Gerald at work in five diamonds. Knowing that they had at most one spade trick to take on defense, West started off by leading the spade queen to try to retain the lead. Then, worried that declarer might be able to set up some hearts, West switched to the club jack, which ran around to declarer’s king.
Declarer now played the heart ace and king, then cashed the diamond ace and played a diamond to dummy’s king. He then ruffed a heart, ruffed a spade, ruffed a heart, and played a low club. When West played the 10, Gerald ducked. With nothing left but spades, West had to give declarer a ruff and discard. South ruffed in dummy, discarding one club from his hand, and then discarded his last club loser on dummy’s fifth heart.
Nicely played, but declarer would have needed to see through the backs of the cards if West had continued with a second spade at trick two. At trick three, declarer must play a club from dummy himself. Now come the heart ace and king, followed by a finesse against the diamond jack!
This enables him to ruff a heart, cross to the diamond king, and ruff another heart, before playing a low club to reach the same position as before.
Bid with the aces
Answer: 2♦
It is a part of normal modern bidding style for responder to be able to find out more about opener’s hand here with a forcing bid of two diamonds — known as “New Minor.” This acts like Stayman, asking opener to show three-card support, or four cards in the unbid major. If you are playing this convention, two hearts by you is natural and weak, denying invitational values, and therefore ideal.
This Hand of the Day was originally published on aces.bridgeblogging.com.
Granted I’m just a club player, but arnt 5 high card points consisting of a queen and three jacks considered a “weak” hand ? I thought NMF showed 5 and a game invite?
2 spade
I think Responder's rebid should be 2H to be consistent with the explanation.