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: ♦3
In today's deal from the semifinals of the NEC tournament, even if West pre-empted to two or three hearts, South became declarer in four spades. What do you think his chances are?
In one room Justin Hackett led the diamond three. Declarer Huub Bertens rose with dummy’s ace to play a spade to his ace, then ran the club jack to East’s queen. Jason Hackett now made the critical error by returning a top trump. Declarer won, played a diamond to the king, ruffed a diamond, crossed to dummy’s heart ace, and led the fourth diamond, scoring his spade eight. (It would have done East no good to ruff high in front of him.) He then ruffed a heart, exited with a trump, and had to score two of the remaining tricks for plus-420.
The play went the same way in the Closed Room to the first three tricks but at trick four Martin Schollaardt returned the diamond 10. Declarer, Geir Helgemo, won in dummy and played a top spade. Schollaardt did very well to duck. Helgemo won cheaply in hand, played a heart to the ace, the club king to the ace, then ruffed the diamond return, ruffed a heart, came to hand with the club 10, and led a fourth heart, ruffed and overruffed. The trump return now left Helgemo with a heart loser; minus 50, and 10 IMPs to the Dutchmen.
East’s ducking the trump prevented declarer from ruffing two diamonds in hand without creating an extra trump winner for the defense.
Bid with the aces
Answer: Pass
Since a direct call of two hearts by your partner would be natural and forcing, you should assume he has long hearts (typically six) and not enough values to follow an invitational sequence to game. Typically, you would expect about an eight-count here, so it feels best to pass (albeit reluctantly) on the grounds that anything else may be worse.
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.
