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The Aces On Bridge by Bobby Wolff
Opening Lead: ♥3
It was not easy to see a way to reach four spades in today's deal, a contract that can be brought home with careful play even against a 4-2 spade break. Five diamonds looks hopeless, but when West paid more attention to the cards played by declarer than to those played by his partner, he paid the penalty.
West led the heart three, and declarer ruffed the heart continuation. When two rounds of trump failed to drop the queen, East pitching a heart, there seemed to be no chance of avoiding a club loser as well. Or was there? Declarer cunningly led the spade nine to dummy’s jack, then cashed the ace and king, dropping the queen from his hand on the second round. Next he led a trump to give West the lead and a problem.
West surmised that South had started with a 3-1-5-4 distribution. In that case, if his clubs were as good as A-J-x-x, a club lead would be fatal, but a ruff and discard would not help declarer, who would still lose a club at the end. So West obliged with another heart. Dummy ruffed, South’s losing club went away, and only later did South’s hidden spade eight appear.
West had not thought enough about the auction (South’s cue-bid strongly suggesting four spades). Had he watched his partner’s spades, he would have seen him follow up the line, suggesting an original odd number. Had East started with four small spades, he would surely have echoed to show an even number.
Bid with the aces
Answer: 3♣
The first question you should ask is how many clubs does this sequence promise? I'd say at least five, not necessarily six; partner can have an awkward call with five good clubs and no heart stopper. That said, you have an awfully good hand for a simple invitational raise to three clubs, but nothing else really appeals. A cue-bid here should probably set up a game-forcing auction.
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.
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