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The Aces On Bridge by Bobby Wolff

Opening Lead: ♠Q

One of the most successful formats for events in the United Kingdom is Swiss Pairs. An event of 12 eight-board matches typically takes place over three days. The format pits pairs who are doing equally well against one another, and it is now the standard format for the first weekend of the annual Brighton Summer Congress.

Today’s deal features a well-conceived defense by Richard Winter and Phil Godfrey from a championship. Against four hearts West, Winter, found the best lead, his bare spade queen, declarer winning in hand with the king. Seeing all four hands, one can easily see the way to defeat South’s game, but as the defenders were not blessed with X-ray vision, they had to rely on accurate signaling to direct the defense.

When South led a low heart at trick two, Winter split his heart honors. Declarer won with dummy’s ace and continued with a second heart. East discarded the spade nine on this, a card that could not convey attitude since both East and West knew declarer had all the missing high cards in the suit. So what should the card mean? Logically, it had to be a loud suit-preference signal for the higher-ranked of the other two suits — in this case, diamonds.

On winning with the heart queen, Winter underled his diamond honors. Godfrey won with the king and returned a spade. Winter’s ruff with his last trump was the third defensive trick, and the club king eventually set the game.

Bid with the aces

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

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