Hand of the day #378
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The Aces On Bridge by Bobby Wolff
Opening Lead: ♥Q
Today’s deal features Giorgio Belladonna on defense during the European Championships of 1967, held in Dublin, where he gained his sixth title as a member of the famous Italian Blue Team. In those days negative doubles were not the norm — Belladonna’s double was for blood. Defending two clubs doubled, Belladonna led the heart queen, then switched to a low diamond, away from his ace. East won with the king, and proceeded to cash the ace and king of hearts, on which Belladonna discarded the nine, then, essentially, the diamond ace.
East now played a diamond, which South ruffed with the club nine. Belladonna refused to overruff, discarding a spade instead. South tried a low club toward the jack, but Belladonna inserted his queen, then got off lead with a spade to dummy’s ace. There was now no way that declarer could return to his hand without Belladonna scoring another trump trick scoring 200 for Italy.
You can see that if West had not discarded his diamonds on his partner’s winning hearts, declarer would have had a safe re-entry to hand with a diamond ruff.
Bid with the aces
Answer: 4♠
Your partner has shown a balanced hand, somewhat better than a strong no-trump. With your side-suit singleton you appear to be offering partner diamond ruffs as well as quick tricks in clubs. Despite your bad trumps, it feels right to jump to four spades now. Just for the record, I believe a call of three clubs would suggest long clubs and a very weak hand, not the 13 cards you hold.
This Hand of the Day was originally published on aces.bridgeblogging.com.
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