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The Aces On Bridge by Bobby Wolff

Opening Lead: ♠A

When deciding which opponent to play for length in a particular suit, you need to consider how you might recover from a wrong guess beyond simply playing the probabilities.

Against today’s three-no-trump contract, one West led ace and another spade, ducked by East. Declarer played a club to East, who continued with the king and a fourth spade. Declarer discarded two hearts from dummy and now had to guess diamonds for his contract. He started by playing the king (on which East carefully played the eight), and when he followed with the ace, he had to go one down.

In the other room, where the contract was doubled, the defense started with three rounds of spades (dummy discarding a heart). Declarer won and played a club, which East again won to clear the spades, dummy discarding a club. On the spades West had discarded two clubs.

Declarer could assume from the double that West held hearts guarded. So it was possible that he had his actual shape, though he might have fewer clubs and four diamonds.

However, declarer could see that if he played East for four diamonds, it wouldn’t matter if he was wrong. He cashed the heart ace, then played the diamond ace and a diamond to the queen. When West showed out, it was simple to pick up East’s jack. But suppose East had shown out. Declarer would simply have played his top hearts and exited with a heart. West now must return a diamond, giving declarer his trick back.

Bid with the aces

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

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