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The Aces On Bridge by Bobby Wolff
Opening Lead: ♦4
This deal, from a major pairs event, worked well for those playing a weak no-trump because they arranged for the spade game to be declared by North. As long as declarer managed to guess clubs, the game was unbeatable.
However, most of the field ended up in four spades by South, often on a diamond lead after East had overcalled in diamonds. How would you play four spades after West has led a low diamond? At several tables declarer went up with dummy’s ace and arranged to ruff a heart in dummy. A spade was played next, but West won and continued diamonds, forcing declarer to ruff. When declarer played a second spade, West again won and played a fourth round of hearts. Now even a correct club guess could do nothing to save declarer.
Can you see how South could, and should, have avoided this? If he ducks the opening diamond lead in dummy, all East can do is win and shift to a heart, but declarer takes the heart ruff and plays on spades. Now when West wins and plays another diamond, declarer is a tempo ahead. He wins with the ace and plays a second trump. West will win and force declarer, who can ruff and draw the rest of the trump. He is reduced to a three-card ending with three clubs in each hand, and should know enough by then to play East for club length, finessing him for the queen.
Bid with the aces
Answer: 1♠
This is one of the rare positions in standard bidding where it is not only acceptable but standard practice to rebid a three-card suit, without misleading your partner. After the negative double, you can jump to two spades with four spades and anything other than a dead minimum, so the one-spade call is quite consistent with three trumps and a hand unsuitable for a one-no-trump bid.
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.
