Hand of the day #292
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The Aces On Bridge by Bobby Wolff
In today's deal North's raise of four spades to five specifically suggested concern about the opponent's suit. If North had weak trumps and a club control, he could have advanced with five clubs, so the actual sequence asked South to pass with no club control, cue-bid the ace, or bid slam with second-round control.
Opening Lead: ♣K
Now to the play. When the board occurred in a team game both tables relied on the heart king falling early or on diamonds breaking. The declarers drew trump and tried to ruff out the heart king, falling back on the diamond break when nothing nice developed. Both tables ended up with 11 tricks, and both were unaware that they had failed to exploit their chances properly.
Better technique is to ruff the second club, draw trump, then cash the heart ace, cross to dummy with a trump, cash the diamond ace, ruff a heart, then run all but one of the trumps. In the four-card ending, dummy has two hearts and the diamond king-queen. In hand you have three diamonds and one trump left; but which four cards does East keep? If he reduces to two hearts and two diamonds, you will unblock diamonds, ruff a heart to hand, and take trick 13 with a diamond.
If instead he keeps one heart and three diamonds, you will know the diamonds are not splitting when West shows out. Your one remaining chance is to ruff a heart to hand; with the heart king falling, dummy is now good.
Bid with the aces
Answer: 4♣
The two possible approaches are to put maximum pressure on your opponents by bidding five clubs, or to try to get the opponents to sell out quietly by bidding four clubs, hoping they stop in four spades. Of the two approaches I marginally prefer the latter (not least because five clubs doubled might prove expensive if your partner's clubs are on the feeble side).
This Hand of the Day was originally published on aces.bridgeblogging.com.