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: ♣K
From the Spingold, Joey Silver of Canada found a nice line in defense.
He led a top club against four hearts, and his partner, Debbie Rosenberg, followed high. With dummy having a singleton, this was an extension of the Obvious Shift principle. Since a diamond would have been West’s logical switch, her encouragement in clubs showed no great interest in his switching to diamonds if he regained the lead.
Declarer won the club ace and deceptively returned the heart queen at trick two. Silver took the ace and accurately shifted to a spade. When declarer finessed, Debbie Rosenberg won her king and shifted to a diamond. Now declarer had no chance, since whatever he did, he would be left with two diamond losers.
At the other table West ducked declarer’s play of the heart queen, for fear of crashing the heart king in his partner’s hand. That allowed South to take the spade finesse next, with his endplay chances intact. East won the spade king and shifted to the diamond 10, but declarer could take this with the ace and eliminate the spades by ruffing out the suit. When West was thrown in with the heart ace, he had to offer a ruff and discard or give South a trick in either minor, while South still had a heart entry back to hand. (It is curious that the winning line for declarer and the winning line for the defense both involve playing spades at trick three.)
Bid with the aces
Answer: 2♠
It might look sensible to bid hearts, but in fact with spade support this good, you should simply raise to two spades. The problem with bidding hearts is that it will tend to deny spade support. Additionally, if you do bid hearts and hear the opponents raise clubs, you may feel obliged to bid spades later, to prevent partner from leading a heart.
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.
