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The Aces On Bridge by Bobby Wolff
Opening Lead: ♦2
If it is satisfying to make a contract on an endplay, then declarer on this deal from nearly 50 years ago must have really enjoyed himself.
South reached three no-trump after a weak two-spade opening from West, who did well on lead, in a sense, to avoid opening up the spades. Unfortunately for him, his choice of a low diamond was even less successful. Declarer was able to duck in dummy, and when East put up the king, it lost to the ace. Declarer played back a diamond, to the 10 and queen, and a third diamond went to West’s jack. Now West switched to his singleton heart, and South won the ace and played a club to the jack and king. West exited with a club, and declarer took his ace and played off his master diamond to reach a six-card ending in which West was known to be down to his six spades.
When declarer led a low spade from his hand, West was forced to win and exit with a low spade, the first endplay. South cashed both his spade winners, to produce a three-card ending in which East was compelled to retain two hearts and thus the bare club queen.
At this point declarer returned the favor to East, exiting with a club to endplay him. He was compelled to lead a heart and concede the last two tricks when declarer ran the lead around to dummy’s jack.
Bid with the aces
Answer: 3♣ or 3♥
In just the same way that everyone uses a response of two no-trump to a weak-two as an inquiry with at least game interest, so here the two-no-trump call is looking for game. I think bidding a feature makes sense here, so I would bid three clubs, but I could understand using the inquiry as asking for a singleton. In that case you would bid three hearts now.
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.
