Hand of the day #393
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The Aces On Bridge by Bobby Wolff
Opening Lead: ♦3
In today's deal from a set of international trials, a farsighted defense led to the defeat of South's four-heart contract.
West was unable to lead a spade, the suit that her partner had bid during the auction, so she attacked with a low diamond. Declarer rose with dummy’s king, and decided that the route to 10 tricks lay via a cross-ruff. But East had ideas of his own about that. He knew from West’s lead of what he knew to be a broken suit rather than his own suit that she had a void in spades. Accordingly he could see that declarer would need to ruff spade losers in dummy.
At trick two declarer led a spade from dummy and East made his first nice play when after rising with his king, he returned his singleton deuce of trumps. Declarer won cheaply in dummy – West withholding her jack – and South continued with dummy’s second spade. East now made his second nice play when he withheld his ace, so that West would be forced to ruff the trick.
This was the winning defense: it put West on lead, she of course being the only one of the partnership who could continue the trump attack – which she did.
Declarer was now a trick short for his contract, as he had only one heart left in dummy – insufficient to deal with three losing spades. This fine defense was not replicated at the other table.
Bid with the aces
Answer: 2♥
Your partner's double is for takeout, suggesting both majors, or one of the majors with club tolerance, and decent values (about a nine-point minimum). The choice is to rebid clubs or to introduce a three-card major. I slightly prefer the latter course of action — the club spots seem a little too feeble for a rebid.
This Hand of the Day was originally published on aces.bridgeblogging.com.
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Wit hour four hearts, I would not bid them. Show the 6 clubs with a rebid telling partner you do not have four of a major.