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The Aces On Bridge by Bobby Wolff

Opening Lead: ♥K

Regular partnerships have firm agreements about leading honors against no-trump. One of the more sensible agreements is that from ace-king combinations, you lead the king if you want your partner to unblock the queen or jack, while the ace asks for attitude. Under the king, third hand drops an honor if he has one, or signals count.

Today, against three no-trump West leads the heart king and East follows with the 10, suggesting a four-card suit. Now West knows a heart continuation would set up South’s queen, so he shifts to a club. Declarer wins the king and has to find a way to a ninth trick.

While declarer could hope to develop a trick from the spades, diamonds offer far more hope. At trick three, declarer must lead the diamond eight from the board, as a sort of avoidance play. He is trying to set up a diamond trick while keeping East off lead. This approach will produce two tricks when East has only one of the diamond 10, queen or king.

Here West wins the diamond and plays a spade. South wins in hand, leads a club to the board, then plays the diamond jack, intending to let that card run if East plays low. When East covers, declarer wins the ace and plays a third diamond, thus setting up the long diamond for his ninth winner.

Bid with the aces

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

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