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The Aces On Bridge by Bobby Wolff

Opening Lead: ♦2

In today's deal West knew that his opponents were in a thin three-no-trump contract (East had to have a few points for his voluntary heart bid) and so was reluctant to lead a heart, which could easily have given declarer a trick. Instead, he chose what he hoped was a passive diamond, and in a way he was right because the diamond did not give anything away.

Declarer won in hand with the queen, played a club to dummy’s jack and East’s 10, then led a club back to his queen, East following with the 10 and the nine, West winning his king.

West now switched to the heart queen, which held the trick. What now? West continued with another heart, won by declarer’s ace, and declarer rattled off four more club tricks. At this stage declarer had seven tricks and needed two more. Everyone was reduced to four cards, and as dummy was discarding after West, there was an answer to anything the defense did. West’s best shot was to come down to three spades and a singleton diamond ace. But declarer simply kept two diamonds and two spades in dummy and led a diamond up.

When the heart queen held, what West needed to do was cash both his aces before he played another heart. Since East had given count in clubs and hearts, West might have been able to work out declarer’s shape. This defense forces declarer to give East a heart trick after he has cashed his clubs.

Bid with the aces

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

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