Hand of the day #245
The Aces On Bridge by Bobby Wolff In today’s deal from the Philadelphia world ...
The Aces On Bridge by Bobby Wolff
This deal was played in round eight of the Rosenblum qualifying stage in Philadelphia. Fredrik Nystrom of Sweden was happy to report his teammates’ defensive effort against a Chilean team.
Opening Lead: ♥2
At one table, South played four spades, wrapping up 10 tricks on a trump lead.
At the other table, South was also declarer in the same contract, but he had to deal with a much more challenging defense by Peter Fredin (West) and Bjorn Fallenius.
Fredin started with a low heart to the seven, 10, and king. Declarer fired a heart right back, and Fredin smoothly played his eight. Declarer inserted dummy’s nine, losing to the jack.
The deception continued when Fallenius put the club queen on the table, ducked by declarer. A third round of hearts was ruffed by declarer, who then played the spade ace and a spade to the jack. Fallenius won and played a fourth round of hearts.
Fredin didn’t want to give away the show by discarding a club, so he ruffed with the 10, overruffed in dummy.
Declarer now played a diamond to his ace and ruffed a club. On the second round of diamonds, Fallenius played the jack, won by declarer’s king. Declarer now had a finessing position against Fredin’s remaining diamonds, the 10-7, but he was convinced that West’s last two cards were a low diamond and the club ace. Accordingly, he played a diamond from hand and went up with dummy’s queen.
I would have loved to be a fly on the wall to see declarer’s reaction!
Bid with the aces
Answer: 1NT
It is a good general rule that one should not worry about bidding no-trump with an unguarded suit, unless or until you have been put on notice that the suit is dangerous. Here no opponent has bid diamonds. If one had, you’d steer clear of no-trump, of course. East has bid clubs, and you have that suit under control, so rebid one no-trump now.
This Hand of the Day was originally published on aces.bridgeblogging.com.