Hand of the day #390
You can now play the hand of the day on BBO+ and compare how you get on with the...
You can now play the hand of the day on BBO+ and compare how you get on with the players in the article.
The Aces On Bridge by Bobby Wolff
Opening Lead: ♠2
Artur Malinowski, declarer in today's deal, won the award for best-played hand. The play was simple, but his reasoning was excellent. After the normal start to the auction, Janet de Botton made a responsive double with the North hand, and East competed further to four hearts. When this came back to de Botton, she tried again with four no-trump. (In a similar position one North had tried an intellectual bid of four spades, but declarer was forced to go one off on the club lead, either sustaining a ruff or losing control.)
Against Malinowski’s contract of five clubs, Tony Priday led the heart king and switched to a spade, which cleared up any doubts in that suit. Declarer won East’s king with the ace, then played the club king and finessed the jack for plus 400. Why did he do this? There were two reasons: the first was that if East had been dealt a doubleton club, he would have been less inclined to go on to four hearts and, equally, West might have led or switched to a club with a doubleton rather than playing a dangerous spade. With queen-third of clubs he was never leading one.
The odds might favor playing the bidder for the missing high cards, but here the inferences pointed in the other direction: East appeared to have extra shape, and thus West was more likely to have long clubs.
Bid with the aces
Answer: Double
Though partner has not acted here, there are reasons to assume that he has a few values (e.g., the opponents' attempts to stay low).. To involve him here, double three clubs for takeout. This suggests your precise hand pattern, though it may be a slight overbid. If you are worried that this sounds like penalty, remember the opponents have bid and raised the suit three times, so you can't hold a trump stack.
This Hand of the Day was originally published on aces.bridgeblogging.com.
You can now play the hand of the day on BBO+ and compare how you get on with the players in the article.