Hand of the day #429
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: ♥9
In today's hand from the Women's teams at the European Championship, declarer was able to restrict her losers in the fourth suit to just one, regardless of the location of the missing honors, by eliminating the other three suits.
Against four spades West led the heart nine. Declarer rose with the ace and immediately ruffed the heart jack. The spade queen came next, then another spade to the king and ace. At this point in the deal declarer has two sure diamond losers and thus to insure her contract needs to hold her club losers to one. It would be easy to guess the suit – but why guess when you have a sure thing?
With trump and hearts eliminated, declarer set about diamonds by leading the jack.
This ran to West’s king, and rather than give a ruff and discard or open up the clubs, West returned a diamond to East’s ace. East did her best by playing another diamond. Nicola ruffed her winning diamond queen in dummy to lead the club queen, (a low club would have had the same effect in this position). Irrespective of the location of the missing club honors, this was guaranteed to be the winning play. In practice East covered with the king, and on taking the ace, declarer conceded just one club trick to the jack.
Had West held the king she would now have been endplayed into either giving declarer a ruff and discard, or returning a club into declarer’s tenace.
Lead with the aces
Answer: Any ♣
The opponents have surely reached a 4-3 or 5-3 fit, with dummy likely to offer a ruffing value. One line of defense might be to lead trump, but then declarer's diamonds will surely set up. Another approach is to keep leading hearts to try to build trump tricks for your partner. The most passive option is to lead clubs, and I think I'd do that.
This Hand of the Day was originally published on aces.bridgeblogging.com.
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