Hand of the day #188
The Aces On Bridge by Bobby Wolff Both the defenders and declarers at the Dyspep...
The Aces On Bridge by Bobby Wolff
Every so often a play comes up that you see only in books. Cover up the East-West hands and we’ll find out what you’ve been reading these days.
Opening Lead: ♥6
In three no-trump on a heart lead, you play low from dummy and capture East’s jack. At trick two you run the diamond queen, West discarding a low spade and East ducking. How do you continue?
With no dummy entry to the diamonds and all the missing black-suit honors marked with West, it looks bad. But there is a way out: Play a second diamond to the ace, then a third diamond, discarding your last heart! What you have done is created a heart stopper in dummy. If the opponents want to play hearts, dummy is going to take a trick in the suit.
In practice East won the diamond king and shifted to a club ducked to West’s queen. West didn’t have much choice, so he did his best by playing the ace and a heart, putting dummy on play. Dummy’s two remaining diamonds were cashed, and now everyone was down to four cards. Dummy had the jack-doubleton of both black suits; West, the guarded king of both black suits; and South, the ace-doubleton in clubs and the A-Q of spades. South now played the ace and a second club, giving up a trick to West’s king, but took his eighth and ninth tricks with the A-Q of spades.
So, did you prove yourself to be a bookworm?
Bid with the aces
Answer: 2♦
The most likely game for your side is four spades, but you have no reason to assume this is not a partscore deal. To maximize your chances of getting to the best contract and bid your suits in the right order, respond two diamonds and plan to bid spades at your next turn. Bear in mind that with your singleton heart, someone is pretty sure to reintroduce hearts.
This Hand of the Day was originally published on aces.bridgeblogging.com.