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The Aces On Bridge by Bobby Wolff

Opening Lead: ♥6

At Lederer tournament, Nicola Smith and Sally Brock demonstrated the form that has won them three world titles as partners or teammates. And they needed all their experience to break the seemingly impregnable slam reached in today's deal by Norwegian Thomas Charlsen.

North’s two-club call was an artificial game-force, and two no-trump showed a three-card spade raise. This was followed by Key Card Blackwood to reach the good spade slam. Nicola led the heart six, consistent with her actual holding, but also consistent with an original holding of J-7-6, J-8-7-6 or J-8-7-6-2. Sally defended well by false-carding with the queen when dummy played low, and Charlsen took his normal line in spades of low to the ace, followed by the running of the jack, so that he could pick up Q-(9)-x-x with East.

When Smith won her spade queen, she continued with the heart seven, and Charlsen decided to believe the opponents rather than playing to establish diamonds with one ruff. When he put in the heart nine, it was all over, and an unbeatable slam had been defeated.

Some commentators on Bridge Base thought Nicola would not lead from the heart jack against a slam, but when you look, you will see that the defenders have all four queens, so they might well have been pushed to find a safe lead. They had to lead some suit after all, and J-x-x-(x) might well have been the least evil. This defense earned Nicola and Sally the award for the best-defended hand.

Lead with the aces

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

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