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The Aces On Bridge by Bobby Wolff

Opening Lead: ♠4

At the world championships in Veldhoven, everyone was impressed by the performance of the Indonesian women. In this deal from their semifinal against England, Grace Tueje made a nice play, one that decided the match in her side's favor.

When South upgraded her hand to a two-club opener, North was now happy to let her partner try for the slam bonus.

Against six no-trump West led the spade four, covered by the seven, nine and ace. Declarer went after clubs first, and things did not look good for her side when East discarded the spade five on the third round. A fourth round of clubs saw declarer pitch a diamond from dummy (having let go a heart on the third club), and East discarded the spade six.

Now West switched to the diamond six, and declarer put up dummy’s ace and played a heart to the jack. When that held, she cashed the last club, West discarding the heart six, dummy the spade three, and East the diamond five. She next cashed the heart ace, and when the king fell, she had to decide who held the diamond queen. If it was West, a simple finesse would suffice, but since East appeared to have started with four cards in that suit, she played her for that card by leading a diamond to the king. Now the heart queen squeezed East between spades and diamonds for the contract.

Bid with the aces

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

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