You can now play the hand of the day on BBO+ and compare how you get on with the players in the article.
The Aces On Bridge by Bobby Wolff
Opening Lead: ♠9
A word about today's auction: After a reverse, a raise by responder of either of opener's suits is best played as forcing. However, at his second turn North simply asked for keycards with hearts as trump, and then for the trump queen. South's answer showed the heart queen and the club king. North might now have bid the grand slam, but the partnership settled in six hearts. West led the spade nine taken by dummy's ace as East followed with an encouraging signal. Thirteen tricks might be available on a crossruff, but that is irrelevant. Assuming that neither defender has a singleton in a minor suit, what is the safest line to make 12 tricks?
After winning the first trick with dummy’s spade ace, lead a club to your ace, followed by a diamond to the king and a second club from dummy. Once the club king holds, throw the club jack on the diamond ace.
Now comes the fun part. You have five tricks already, and you make sure of the next six tricks by conducting a high crossruff. At trick 12 you will ruff the minor-suit card left in your hand with dummy’s heart six. Either that will win the trick or East will be able to overruff it with the heart eight. In that case, your heart seven will be high and will take the last trick. You will make a spade, seven trump tricks and four tricks in the minors.
Lead with the aces
Answer: ♦J
The double calls for dummy's first-bid suit. Geniuses might lead a low diamond, hoping partner will work out that he can win the lead and put you back in, but that is for geniuses only! The rest of the world leads the jack and apologizes later if it does not work out perfectly.
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.