Hand of the day #570
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: ♠10
All the deals this week come from the annals of one of the best annual invitational tournaments in the world, the NEC tournament in Yokohama.
In this deal from the semifinals between Bulgaria and an Anglo-Dutch team, the Bulgarians won the bidding battle but lost the war – though it was a close run thing.
In the room not featured North had overcalled bid two diamonds over one no-trump, which simplified the auction but lost the heart fit for good. The Bulgarians as East-West declared four clubs, and the defenders led spades and eventually scored a trick in each suit for down one.
Meanwhile, although the Bulgarian contract of four hearts (on the auction shown) appeared hopeless, Manol Iliev gave himself a decent chance. He got a spade lead and a club shift to the ace for a club return. He won in hand and played out his top spades, on which Ricco van Prooijen discarded — though ruffing in with the queen might have been best.
Now declarer played a heart to the ace, and Louk Verhees carefully unblocked his king to let his partner in for the diamond play, insuring the defeat of the game. Had he not done so, he would have been thrown in and forced to lead from the diamond king or give a ruff-sluff.
Lead with the aces
Answer: ♦2
While you might lead a heart in an attempt to set up heart winners before they can be discarded, when dummy is weak the club suit doesn't feel like much of a threat. More likely is that declarer is in a 5-3 diamond fit and you may need to lead trump repeatedly to kill a major-suit ruff in dummy. So lead the diamond two.
This Hand of the Day was originally published on aces.bridgeblogging.com.
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