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The Aces On Bridge by Bobby Wolff
Opening Lead: ♣K
Professional courtesy among journalists (some would call it honor among thieves) prevents me from specifying which of my colleagues ran this deal in one of his books.
The author suggested that in four spades, declarer should find the winning line of ducking the first spade after winning the club lead in dummy. That holds the trump losers to one and is certainly a successful line — though it would fail against 3-2 trumps, since the defenders can switch to hearts and promote East’s third trump!
The writer also goes a step too far when he says that this line is essential if you want to make the contract. Let’s revisit the play on a club lead to dummy’s ace. Declarer leads a trump to the king and ace, and the defenders now have a choice. On a heart shift, declarer ducks, then wins the next heart to play the spade queen, jack and a third trump, then claims the rest. If West switches back to clubs after the first heart holds, declarer ruffs and plays ace and another heart, ruffing in dummy. East does best to discard, but declarer comes to hand with a diamond and ruffs the fourth heart. All the defenders score is their trump trick.
It looks better for the defenders to lead a top club at trick three. Declarer ruffs, and only now does he lead a low trump! East wins and plays another club; declarer discards a heart from hand and ruffs the next club in dummy, comes to hand with a diamond, draws trump and claims.
Bid with the aces
Answer: 1NT
This auction suggests partner has real clubs as well as four hearts. (With a balanced hand, partner would rebid one no-trump; our sequence strongly suggests we have no major if we have less than invitational values.) Nonetheless, my choice is to rebid one no-trump here, despite possibly wrong-siding our spade stop. We can always get back to clubs if partner is minimum and shapely.
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.
"then wins the next heart to play the spade queen, jack...". I presume you mean you continue with the jack and another when both follow to the queen. When West shows out, drawing trumps would fail if East had a third heart to continue. Safer instead to ruff a heart, return to hand with a diamond, and then draw trumps. But even this line fails when East has a fourth heart. I am no expert but it seems to me that after winning a heart continuation, you would be best placed to ruff a heart, return to hand with a diamond, ruff another heart, and return to hand in diamonds again to draw trumps. If the defenders ruff in at any point they will save the overtrick but the contract will be safe, 4-1 spades or 3-2 spades.