Bookworm Bridge Conundrums #41
This conundrum was written by Barbara Seagram's and was originally published in ...
The Aces On Bridge by Bobby Wolff
Opening Lead: ♣K
After West had shown a two-suiter, Adam Zakrzewski (South) landed in three spades. On a top-club lead, Adam ducked and won the heart-jack shift with dummy’s queen.
He ran the diamond jack to West’s queen, took the top-heart return in dummy, and repeated the diamond finesse. Then he played a club to the ace and a spade to the queen and ace. Once the 5-0 trump break came to light, declarer knew he had three top losers, so must try to restrict East to just one more trump trick. That looks unlikely, doesn’t it?
At trick eight East returned the spade jack so that dummy would have to ruff declarer’s club loser with a significant trump. A less imaginative club return would have worked better.
Adam took the spade jack in hand, cashed the diamond ace, then ruffed his club loser in dummy with the spade 10. He had reduced to a three-card ending where both East and South were left only with spades. Adam led a red-suit winner from dummy, and when East ruffed in with the spade seven, he underruffed with the three. That left him with the trump 9-5 over East’s 8-4 for the last two tricks.
Lead with the aces
Answer: ♠10
West has shown clubs and spades and about 17 points. Since neither of those suits seems to be behaving well for declarer, you should aim to find as passive a lead as possible. The choice is between the heart six (second from a bad suit) and the spade 10. I prefer the spade 10 partly because partner should find it easier to read.
This Hand of the Day was originally published on aces.bridgeblogging.com.
Ottimo