Hand of the day #342
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The Aces On Bridge by Bobby Wolff
Opening Lead: ♣K
When North chose a negative double after West's overcall, you had far too much playing strength to rebid at the two-level. Your leap to four hearts may have been an overbid – it was certainly all North needed to commit to a small slam. West leads the club king, taken by dummy's ace. How do you plan to make 12 tricks?
You should try to set up and enjoy your spade suit, as it needs little more than breaking no worse than 4-2. However, in some layouts a little care is required.
In today’s layout, if your first move in trumps is to play dummy’s ace, you will go down! Instead, you should tackle spades immediately by playing the ace and king then ruffing a spade high once West follows with a third spade. Next, return to hand with a trump to the 10 (discovering the 4-0 break) and ruff a second spade high. Then you will play the trump five and cover East’s card as cheaply as possible. You can now draw East’s remaining trumps and claim the contract losing just one club trick.
This plan would also succeed if spades were 3-3. After ruffing one spade, you could draw trumps and claim 12 tricks via four spades, a spade ruff, five trumps, a diamond and a club.
As you can see, you need both the ace and king of trumps for ruffing purposes. If you waste one of those at trick two, there would be no way to recover.
Bid with the aces
Answer: Pass or bid game depends on vulnerability
Your action here may depend on the vulnerability — just as you'd be more cautious facing a two-spade opening if the pre-empt were in first seat nonvulnerable (when I would guess to pass) or second seat vulnerable, when I might go all the way to game. With quick tricks, but no trump spots, I would pass, expecting game to be poor, facing a nonvulnerable preempt.
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.
When north put x down was he trying to tell his partner he had heart
Is not complicated. AK of spades and spade ruff high.Small trump to hand (reveal the hearts),spade ruff high and trump with foness. 12 tricks.