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The Aces On Bridge by Bobby Wolff

Opening Lead: ♦Q

How would you play four spades when West leads the diamond queen? The key to the deal is that since you cannot avoid losing two clubs, you must try to hold your heart losers to one.

Declarer won with the ace and drew trumps with the ace and queen. Then, hoping to set up a discard on the clubs, he continued with a club to the queen.

East won with the king and switched to the heart jack. This was the key moment.

What would you have done, as South? Show the hand to someone learning the game and she might say that she had seen the theme already. After all, this looks like a classical example of a finesse. She would play the queen, losing to West’s king, and the defenders would set up a second heart trick, beating the contract. Instead you should rise with the heart ace. When you play another club, it is West (the safe hand, who cannot lead through the heart queen) who wins the trick. You will be now able to throw a heart on dummy’s club winner. If East wins the second club, nothing is lost except a potential overtrick. In other words, the game is still safe if the heart king was onside all along.

If you had climbed to five spades, you would need to risk the finesse. And if you were playing matchpoint pairs, you might consider risking the contract by finessing in hearts, playing for a top or a bottom.

Lead with the aces

This Hand of the Day was originally published on aces.bridgeblogging.com.

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