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The Aces On Bridge by Bobby Wolff

Opening Lead: ♦J

The natural play in four hearts here on the lead of the diamond jack is to cover with dummy's queen. East will win with the king and return the diamond eight. Whether South covers or not, the defenders will establish their second diamond winner and be ready when in with the trump ace to cash their diamond and spade winners.

The winning approach features the concept of a frozen suit — a somewhat arcane designation of a position where neither side can successfully attack a suit except at the cost of a trick.

If declarer accurately reads the opening lead as coming from J-10-x of diamonds, then he can rise with the diamond ace and simply knock out the trump ace. With the cards lying the way that he had hoped, neither defender can successfully play on diamonds without establishing the third-round winner for declarer. Of course, declarer cannot play on diamonds himself without creating two winners for the defenders — but he doesn’t need to. Since he has five club winners, four trump tricks and the diamond ace, he can come to 10 tricks whatever the defenders choose to do.

This concept of a frozen suit would apply equally well if the East-West holdings were identical but the diamonds were Q-5-2 in dummy facing A-9-6. Again, declarer would have to work out that West had the J-10, then duck the opening lead to prevent the defenders from continuing the suit effectively.

Bid with the aces

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

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