Hand of the day #566
You can now play the hand of the day on BBO+ and compare how you get on with the...
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
The bridge press has an association, the IBPA, and I came across today's deal in an IBPA bulletin from a tournament years ago.
Against six clubs West led the spade jack, and declarer’s normal approach was to take this with the king and play a trump; down one against the cruel trump split.
Whatever declarer does, West will score two club tricks, sooner or later.
However, one player took the spade king and then crucially played the diamond jack to the ace and ruffed a diamond before playing a trump. The timing had now been corrected to give him a chance to make the contract. When the bad trump break came to light, declarer, in dummy with the club king, decided to play West for three cards in each of the side suits. (His choice would have been to play West for two spades, three hearts and four diamonds, but East’s decision to pitch a diamond on the first club pushed him in favor of the correct decision).
South ruffed another diamond low in hand and cashed the heart and spade winners ending in dummy. Now he had reduced to an ending where dummy had the doubleton club jack and the diamond king, South and West their three highest clubs.
Remarkably, when South ruffed the diamond ace with the club queen, West’s sure second trump trick had vanished. Whether he overruffed and led into the club tenace, or underruffed, and then let the club jack score in dummy, he could take only one further trump trick.
Bid with the aces
Answer: Pass
If you play negative doubles it is important to agree that any time you pass as responder then double a natural call at your next turn, it is geared toward penalties not take-out. It suggests a trap pass of one heart here, since a penalty double was not available. So pass, and plan to lead a top heart if the auction ends here.
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.
The strip, trump coup endplay was amazing. I would've never found the line. Even looking at all 4 hands it took a second.
Well done playing around the 4-0 split.
Also had to get the exact right shape to properly strip without getting ruffed and then had to ruff the Q of trump as cherry on top to either force the A (leading to an endplay) or an under ruff.
The 6 clubs hand looks eerily familiar. Adventures in Cardplay in the elopement section maybe? I might be wrong but feel I recognize it.