Hand of the day #337
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: ♣10
The North hand is somewhat difficult to judge when South has shown a very strong hand with hearts. The second-round diamond control does not look valuable, so maybe signing off at every turn is a reasonable approach.
As South, you of course do not know about the wasted high cards opposite. When you bid slam, you’d better make it if you don’t want to hear complaints about your overbidding, and underplaying the hand. What should be your thoughts when you receive the lead of the club 10?
The idea here should be to avoid taking the spade finesse if at all possible. On the given layout your plan should be to endplay West when he has no winning exit card.
After winning the first trick with the club ace, you cross to dummy with the trump nine and ruff the diamond five high. Next you cash the club king and ruff the club four, eliminating that suit. You proceed to ruff dummy’s diamond seven high, which allows you to return to dummy by leading the trump six to dummy’s eight. Now comes the key play — you will lead the diamond king and discard the spade five from hand.
After West wins this trick with the ace, he has no good return. A spade exit will run to your ace-queen while a fourth round of diamonds will see you ruff in dummy and discard the spade queen from hand. Either way, you make 12 tricks.
Bid with the aces
Answer: 3♥
Your five-card trump support and outside king make your hand just worth a raise to three hearts, which does not promise all that much. With the same hand but a queen and a jack instead of a king, you might bid four hearts. That call would in essence show a double negative but with trump support.
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.
