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The Aces On Bridge by Bobby Wolff

Opening Lead: ♠K

The final of the NEC tournament held in Yokohama was between Down Under from Australia and the Bulgarian All Stars. Both teams are more aggressive bidders than most, and in the deal that followed the aggressive approach paid huge dividends, when coupled with some careful declarer play.

In one room for Down Under Tony Nunn as West overcalled one spade over one club and Sartaj Hans jumped to four spades, driving his opponents to the five-level.

In five hearts declarer needed clubs not to be unusually hostile so cashed the club ace and king early and was doubtless more hurt than surprised when East ruffed. Now there were two more tricks to lose, whatever declarer did.

But Martin Reid declared four hearts in the other room on an essentially uncontested auction, and paradoxically, the very bad break in clubs was good news, in a sense, for Bulgaria, since Reid now might have trouble making 10 tricks in hearts.

After an opening spade lead, declarer won in dummy and led a heart to hand and a diamond to the jack to cut the defenders’ communications. When East won and shifted to a club, Reid won his ace and carefully ducked a club. Now whether West took his club queen or East ruffed, declarer could now arrange to ruff clubs in dummy and hold his losers to one more trump trick.

That swing made the match safe for Down Under — the first win for an Antipodean team in this event for over a decade.

Bid with the aces

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

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