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The Aces On Bridge by Bobby Wolff
Opening Lead: ♣Q
Larry Cohen and David Berkowitz, representing the U.S,A. in Maastricht in 2000 as members of the George Jacobs team, found themselves on defense against four hearts in this deal.
After a club lead, declarer has a tricky play problem. Perhaps the right thing is to ruff a club at once and lead the diamond 10 from dummy. Even if the defenders take two diamonds and a ruff, declarer can ruff his last club in dummy and come to 10 tricks. However, declarer actually took a diamond finesse at once. If Cohen wins the diamond queen to play a trump, declarer can arrange to ruff a club and play a second diamond to set up the suit, coming to five hearts, two diamonds, two aces and a club ruff for 10 tricks.
But when declarer led a diamond to the 10 at trick two, Cohen won with the ace! He then shifted to the heart eight, and declarer won the ace in dummy, played the spade ace, ruffed a spade, ruffed a club on which Cohen unblocked the king, ruffed a spade, and played two more rounds of trump.
In the ending, declarer had eight tricks, and even though Cohen still had a trump, there were chances for the contract. East confidently repeated the diamond finesse. Disaster! Cohen won the queen and played a club to Berkowitz’s hand. Another club allowed Cohen to pitch his low diamond, for down two.
Bid with the aces
Answer: 2♣ or 2♥
Your partner should have four spades but also real clubs – he would have surely rebid one no-trump with a balanced hand here. So one choice is to repeat the hearts; if so, a call of two hearts would surely be enough. The alternative would be to try a stopperless call of one no-trump, or to raise clubs — either a simple raise or a jump raise. None of these thrill me; I’ll go for the two-club call.
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.