Bookworm Bridge Conundrums #53
This conundrum was written by Barbara Seagram's and was originally published in ...
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The Aces On Bridge by Bobby Wolff
Opening Lead: ♥10
Against six spades, West leads the heart 10, won with your ace, but on the first trump, East discards a club. Can you recover?
You will have to start by discarding dummy’s diamond losers on your two spare heart winners. You play the diamond ace at trick three, cross to the club king, and cash the club queen.
You next play the heart king and queen, throwing dummy’s remaining diamonds. When you lead the trump five, West does best to split his honors, preventing you from finessing dummy’s eight. You win his trump 10 with the queen and ruff the club four with your remaining trump, the nine.
While dummy’s last four cards are the trump K-8-3 and club ace, West still has to play to this trick, holding J-7-6 of trumps and a low card in each red suit. He is now on the horns of a dilemma. If he overruffs with the jack, you will be able to ruff his red-suit return in dummy, draw trump, and claim the balance. If instead he discards, you will lead a red card and score a ruff with dummy’s trump three. You can then exit with the club ace, which West ruffs, and score the K-8 of trumps on his return.
(Incidentally, if East had all five trumps, you would need to find him with exactly 5-3-1-4 pattern. If so, you could cash all the side suits, ruff the fourth club, then exit with the spade nine to East to endplay him in trumps.)
Bid with the aces
Answer: 3♣
It is easy to get carried away here, but you can imagine partner's hand with six solid diamonds and the spade queen, where you would be struggling even in game. For the time being, look for three no-trump first, facing a spade stop. Bid three clubs, asking partner to support hearts or rebid at no-trump with a spade guard.
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.
3NT