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The Aces On Bridge by Bobby Wolff

Opening Lead: ♠J

Today's deal contains points of interest both for defenders and for declarer.

Looking at all four hands, can South make six hearts on the lead of the spade queen?

If South ruffs the opening lead and plays ace and another club, East must ruff his partner’s winner and play a trump, restricting South to 11 tricks. If East hoards his trump, not ruffing his partner’s winner, then the 4-0 break comes to declarer’s rescue. He can simply arrange to ruff his two club losers in dummy and come to 12 tricks painlessly.

Of course, declarer does not know in advance about the bad trump break, but he must plan to counter this line of defense. What he must do at trick two is play the diamond king, then cash the diamond ace, and ruff a diamond high.

He has now established the diamonds as a threat against East. When he now plays ace and another club, East again must ruff and play a trump, or South reverts to the crossruff line. The difference is that when South wins the trump in dummy and finds the bad break, East is left with only two trumps instead of three.

South simply plays a winning diamond from the dummy. East must ruff again, but now a second heart to dummy draws East’s last trump and provides access to dummy for the last time. So both of declarer’s club losers can be discarded on dummy’s two remaining diamond winners.

Bid with the aces

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

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