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: ♦K

In this deal from European Championships, Peter Schaltz, South for Denmark, ended in four hearts on the auction shown.

After the lead of the diamond king, taken by dummy’s ace, declarer played a trump to the jack and ace. Norberto Bocchi cashed his diamond queen and continued with a third, letting Duboin ruff in with the heart queen to promote the setting trick in trumps via an uppercut.

In the other room, after the same opening, although North-South identified their heart fit, the Italians chose three no-trump as their final contract, played by North, Lorenzo Lauria.

East led the diamond 10, West played the queen and Lauria ducked. North won the diamond continuation and played a heart to the jack and ace. He won the third diamond and led another heart, allowing East’s queen to hold. As East had no diamond to return, Lauria ended with 10 tricks. The critical moment in the defense was that on the third diamond, East had to discard his heart queen, and that would have left declarer without resource.

Curiously, if West ducks the first diamond (normally sound technique in these positions), Lauria can always make the hand. He wins cheaply, leads a heart up, and East cannot unblock his queen — or West later gets endplayed in diamonds to concede a second heart trick. And if East plays low on the first heart, declarer puts in the jack, wins the second diamond, and ducks a heart to East’s bare queen, as happened at the table.

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 ▶