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The Aces On Bridge by Bobby Wolff

Opening Lead: ♠K

Despite your opponents bidding and raising spades, you still manage to find your way to the heart game. Incidentally, do you like your partner's decision to drive to four hearts? I do. North knew you had made a vulnerable overcall on a suit headed by at most one top honor, so you had to have at least six cards in the suit, with approximately opening values. Therefore, bidding game was a sensible decision.

Not surprisingly West leads the spade king, then the queen and continues with a spade to East’s ace, which you ruff. When you draw trump you find East has three. How do you virtually guarantee your contract now?

It looks reasonable to try the minor-suit finesses, but if you do so, you can guarantee that the diamond finesse will lose – after all, what did east open on. Now you will be reduced to the very slim chance of the club king falling in two rounds to make your game.

There is a much better approach, based on the fact that East is known to have eight cards in the majors along with both minor-suit kings. Simple arithmetic demands that he must have either a singleton or doubleton king in one of those suits. So duck a diamond completely. Ruff the spade return, then on the next diamond, rise with the ace. Either East’s king will fall or he must have king singleton or doubleton in clubs, so you can pick up that suit without loss.

Bid with the aces

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

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