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The Aces On Bridge by Bobby Wolff

Opening Lead: ♦Q

The field in a pairs game generally played four hearts here and the traveler showed a string of scores of plus 50 to East-West, and yet when West leads the diamond queen against your heart game, you should really find a way to make the contract.

The mistake most declarers made was to win the lead in dummy and play a spade to the 10. West won, led a low diamond to his partner, and a club shift scuttled declarer’s chances.

Let’s revisit the play. Since you are not keen for East to be able to obtain the lead cheaply to lead a club through your king, you should play low from dummy on the first trick. East is welcome to overtake with the diamond king. If he pays this high price to gain the lead, the defenders can take their clubs, but you will finesse the diamond 10 subsequently, setting up a discard for your spade loser.

If East plays low at trick one, you win the next diamond with dummy’s ace and play a spade to the 10. If West wins with the king or queen, you will unblock the spade ace and later take a ruffing spade finesse through East after drawing trumps to set up a discard for one of your club losers. So long as the spade honors are split, the defenders cannot prevent this line of play. And if both spade honors are on your right, you still have the club finesse available.

Bid with the aces

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

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