Hand of the day #313
You can now play the hand of the day on BBO+ and compare how you get on with the...
You can now play the hand of the day on BBO+ and compare how you get on with the players in the article.
The Aces On Bridge by Bobby Wolff
Opening Lead: ♣K
Bridge is a strange game. Why on earth would it be easier to make four hearts in today's deal than four spades? If you do fall by accident into four hearts, you would ruff the club lead, cash the heart ace, then run the spades. That way you simply give up the three trump tricks to West. But in the real world, you will play four spades.
You ruff the top club lead, then take the spade ace and king. If trumps split, you will find it easy to make 11 tricks, but when trumps divide 3-1, it would be very easy, but fatal, to draw a third round of trumps.
If you do that, then play ace and another heart, West will win and tap you for a second time with another club, and again when he gets in with the third heart. You are now out of trumps and can never score your fifth heart.
Instead, you must play ace and another heart before playing a third trump. If hearts break, you can ruff the next club and draw the last trump before playing a third heart. But if hearts also break badly, you can ruff the second club, give up a heart, ruff a third club, and ruff the fourth heart in dummy.
East can overruff for the defenders’ third trick, but the contract still succeeds — since you have only winners left, together with one trump.
Bid with the aces
Answer: 4♦
There is some temptation to jump to four no-trump as a way to show the minors, but maybe a simple call of four diamonds is enough. And certainly if North has a very strong heart one-suiter, he would prefer to buy the hand at the four-level, rather than go higher unnecessarily.
This Hand of the Day was originally published on aces.bridgeblogging.com.
You can now play the hand of the day on BBO+ and compare how you get on with the players in the article.