Hand of the day #307
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The Aces On Bridge by Bobby Wolff
Opening Lead: ♠2
Because this deal was the last of a session, maybe the players were tired, which is perhaps why some took their eyes off the ball.
A low-heart lead away from the ace could lead to the defeat of the club slam, but who would find that?
At the table, West led a spade and declarer took the free finesse. The queen held, but declarer made the fatal error of discarding a low diamond from hand. This would not have cost if trump had not divided 4-0. A heart discard — or even the diamond ace — would have saved declarer. But South should have foreseen that the diamond queen might be needed as a late entry back to dummy.
Declarer cannot afford to cash a high trump from dummy, and so does best to work on spades. The spade ace (for a second heart discard), then a spade ruff, is followed by a high club from hand, getting the bad news. Now comes a low diamond toward the queen. It does not matter whether West inserts the king — the diamond entry to dummy will still be there. As you can see, though, the early diamond discard blocked the suit.
When West takes his diamond king, then whatever he returns, another spade ruff can be engineered, setting up that suit. After South cashes his last trump, he can re-enter dummy via the diamond queen and draw trumps.
Bid with the aces
Answer: 4♣
Your partner's bid is highly encouraging but not forcing. In context, your heart king and four trumps are almost enough to drive to game. I'd settle for a call of four clubs though, because if your partner reoffers four hearts, you can pass happily.
This Hand of the Day was originally published on aces.bridgeblogging.com.
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Hello there,
I hope that my message finds you well. I am writing to you regarding the Hand of the day #300. It is not possible to leave a comment there (in #301-#306 possible).
Together with Maciej Bielawski, my former partner in junior championships, basing on the knowledge developed through Krzysztof Martens' and Marek Wójcicki's bidding trainings, we had developed a solution for bidding in posiotion described in #300.
1 Spade - [3 hearts] - ?
In this position and any similar, such as
1M - [3m/oM] -?
We had been using the following agreement:
4 Clubs - strong agreement of the opener's M without the shortage in opp's suite
4 Diamonds - strong agreement of the opener's M with the shortage in opp's suite
4M - to play
4OM - the other Minor slam invitation
4NT - slam invitation in diamonds in this particular example (1s-[3h]-?)
with standard GF on minor use x
There is significant space for additional information after using these 4c/4d gadgets and you could also easily get information about a hand with the shortage/ w/o the shortage in opp's suite at the lower level.