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: ♦10

Bidding is all about exchanging information with partner, but in bridge all this information is also available to the opponents. So, a good bidder is selective, telling partner what he needs to know, but keeping quiet when the information is more likely to be of use to the opponents.

East’s double here was really foolish. If his partner couldn’t lead the fourth suit without the double, then it would probably not be right anyway. Look at what actually happened.

West’s natural choice of lead, with such a good holding in declarer’s first suit, might well have been a trump, but East’s double deflected him and instead he chose the diamond 10, which ran to declarer’s ace. Declarer played the heart queen, won by East, who switched to a trump rather than cash the diamond king and set up dummy’s queen. Declarer won the trump shift in dummy, played a heart to his jack, a spade to dummy, cashed the heart king while discarding a diamond, ruffed a heart, and ruffed a club.

Declarer now played the winning heart from dummy. East had to ruff this, and declarer discarded a club. East now played the club ace, and declarer found a very nice maneuver when he discarded a diamond from dummy rather than ruff and endplay himself. East now had no option but to play a diamond, which declarer ran to dummy’s queen. That let him crossruff the last two tricks.

Bid 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 ▶