Bookworm Bridge Conundrums #40
This conundrum was written by Barbara Seagram's and was originally published in ...
The Aces On Bridge by Bobby Wolff
This deal comes from the world championships held in Philadelphia. The swing that arose on this board from the teams event was somewhat random in nature, since a lot depended on the minor suit opened by West. If West opened one club and South ended up in three no-trump without having bid a suit, then it was natural for West to lead either a high or low diamond at the first trick. It did not really matter which card West chose. It was then easy for South to establish diamonds and bring home nine tricks.
Opening Lead: ♣5
By contrast, if declarer received an unhelpful club lead, as happened when Tarek Sadek was declarer in three no-trump in the Rosenblum, there was considerably more work to do. He won the lead in his hand, knocked out one high diamond, then took the spade shift and knocked out the other top diamond. When a spade came back, he could see that he needed to achieve an endplay on West, which in turn required that player to have only two hearts.
So he cashed both top hearts and just two more rounds of spades, ending in hand, then drove out the diamond nine, endplaying West to lead clubs to him for the ninth trick. In the end Sadek took only three spade tricks, but he also scored two hearts, three diamonds, and a second club trick for his contract.
Bid with the aces
Answer: 3♦
The fact that you have five chunky diamonds outweighs your defensive club holding. Both sides rate to have a nine-card fit here, so you should bid three diamonds and compete to the level of your total trumps, a theory espoused by Larry Cohen and the Law of Total Tricks. When in doubt, bid on with trump, as opposed to high cards.
This Hand of the Day was originally published on aces.bridgeblogging.com.
