Bookworm Bridge Conundrums - #55
This conundrum was written by Patrick O'Connor and was originally publ...
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: ♦Q
Every year at the beginning of March, the English Bridge Union runs their ranked master pairs' events. Whatever your ranking in the EBU's masterpoint scheme, there is a pairs event for you. The highest ranking of these is the Grand Masters Pairs. Today's hand is from that event and shows that sometimes even the least promising suits can be set up to advantage.
With a singleton spade, South had little choice but to overcall two clubs rather than doubling, and now North’s good distribution persuaded him to raise pre-emptively to the five-level.
Apparently several pairs went down in five clubs after a diamond lead, failing to see the possibilities in the spade suit. The correct line of play is to duck the diamond and win the continuation. Now you must play a trump to hand and discard the diamond losers on the heart ace and king. But what next? It is important to see that you need to ruff two hearts and a diamond in the dummy, but do not have the communications to do so without giving up the lead. When you do this, the opponents will surely play another trump, and now you will be a trick short.
After discarding your diamonds, you must play a spade and duck it in dummy. Win the trump return in the dummy, ruff a spade, ruff a heart, and ruff a spade. When the ace and king come tumbling down, you can ruff another heart and cash your spade winners for 11 tricks.
Lead with the aces
Answer: ♦6
The hearts can wait. Your priority here is to lead trumps to prevent declarer from ruffing his spades in dummy. The typical dummy will contain a small spade or two, and the best defense will consist of keeping declarer from setting up the spades successfully. Whenever declarer plays in his second suit, you should think about a trump lead.
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.
