Bookworm Bridge Conundrums #89
This conundrum was written by Mark Horton and was originally published in t...
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The Aces On Bridge by Bobby Wolff
Opening Lead: ♣5
At the U.S. Nationals in Memphis, the Stratified Open Pairs threw up a deal with a point of interest in the play. After a highly informative auction, South reached three hearts on a fourth-highest club lead from West. Declarer won in hand and advanced the diamond queen to West’s king. Back came a second club, and South won the club return in dummy to play a second diamond. East won the ace and shifted to a low spade. What should declarer do now?
The auction had strongly suggested that West, because of his failure to act earlier was 4-6 in spades and clubs. He would surely have opened three clubs or stayed silent without a side-suit. And the logical second suit for him to hold had to be spades.
If that inference is sound, then the right line, which declarer missed at the table, is to win the spade ace, which he did. But then it was right to cash only one top trump, not both — after all, on our projected arithmetic, West could have at most one trump and South needs to retain a high trump in hand, as we shall see.
If South had done that, he could then have played the diamond jack, pitching a spade from dummy. Then he can ruff a diamond, ruff a club, and lead the fifth diamond to discard the other losing spade from dummy. If East ruffs in on the third club, South overruffs and leads the fifth diamond as before.
Bid with the aces
Answer: 2NT
Whether you are playing two clubs as a game-force, or forcing for one round, there is little agreement as to how to proceed with strong balanced hands. My preference is to bid three no-trump with a strong no-trump equivalent, and rebid two no-trump with 12-14, or 18-plus, planning with the latter to bid on over a sign-off. So I would bid two no-trump, then bid on over a sign-off to show 18-plus (the choice is a conservative invitation to slam or simply driving to the six-level).
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.
