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: ♠J

In a Junior European Championship the Greek team, sitting North-South here, put in a serious entry for the luckiest board not only of the tournament but of the decade! The defense can cash out spades against three no-trump, while five clubs appears to have two top spade losers and an inevitable heart loser.

At the table, though, North’s conservative bid of four clubs set South up for his inspired bid of four diamonds, naturally raised by North to five diamonds. Remarkably, the 4-3 fit is the only available game for North-South because of the spade ruff in the short trump hand. When West led a spade, East won the spade king, cashed the next spade, then played a heart.

However, declarer simply refused the heart finesse and ruffed a spade in dummy, bringing his total to 11 tricks: four diamonds, five clubs, the heart ace and the spade ruff. Of course he needed to guess the trumps well, since when he led the third spade from hand and West ruffed in with the jack, declarer still had to find the trump 10, but he did so.

Note that if East had played back a heart before cashing the spades, it prevents the ruff in dummy. However, declarer would simply have taken the heart ace, drawn trump, and discarded two spades on dummy’s clubs before setting up a heart. Similarly, if the opening lead had been a minor, South would have cashed three rounds of trump and again discarded his spades on dummy’s clubs.

Lead with the aces

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.

Click here to play earlier Hands of the day ▶