The Aces On Bridge by Bobby Wolff

Opening Lead: ♦J

With the North cards facing a strong no-trump, one would normally transfer to spades, then bid and rebid hearts to show 6-5 or 5-5 and slam interest. Here, however, the quality of the spades compared to the hearts persuaded North to treat his hand as a single-suited slam-try with spades and short diamonds, essentially ignoring hearts altogether. This slightly unconventional approach worked perfectly, when a subsequent exchange of cuebids got South to what appeared to be a laydown slam, but one that was threatened by the hostile breaks in both majors.

West predictably kicked off with the diamond jack. Declarer ruffed, then drew trump in four rounds, as East came under severe pressure. If he had discarded a heart, it would have been easy to set up and cash out that suit, so he discarded all three of his diamonds, then a low club. Now South led a heart to the queen, prepared to claim 12 tricks. He had to reassess the position when the 5-0 break came to light, but found an elegant solution when he cashed the heart ace and 10.

East had to duck this trick or dummy would effectively be high. But declarer next played the club ace, a diamond ruff to dummy, and the heart jack, discarding the master club! East could win this trick, but now had to give the lead to dummy at trick 12.

Had East pitched his clubs on the trumps, cashing the ace and king of clubs would have created a very similar position.

Bid with the aces

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

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