The Aces On Bridge by Bobby Wolff

In today’s auction North’s jump-shift followed by a new suit was a cue-bid for spades, since the partnership had the agreement never to jump-shift with a two-suited hand.

Opening Lead: ♥K

That got his side to slam, but pinpointed the heart lead for the defense. Now they were threatening to cash their heart winner on getting in with the spade ace. Obviously, declarer could not draw trumps before trying to discard his losing heart. So he played on side-suits to get his discard, an approach that turned out to present more problems than might have been expected, given the bad side-suit breaks. However, today’s declarer, with careful planning, was equal to the task.

Declarer won his heart ace, unblocked the diamond ace, and went to the club ace to lead a top diamond, ruffed and overruffed. A second club to dummy’s queen let declarer lead a diamond, again ruffed and overruffed.

Now declarer ruffed a club in dummy, led a fourth diamond, again ruffed and overruffed, and finally crossed his fingers before leading the club king and ruffing it in dummy.

Finally, something went right for him: East could not ruff, so declarer was in dummy to lead the fifth diamond and pitch his heart loser. He could now claim 12 tricks.

Notice that declarer has to ruff his winner to get to the board. It does him no good to pitch on the club king since there is still a heart loser left in both hands if he does.

Bid with the aces

This Hand of the Day was originally published on aces.bridgeblogging.com.

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