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The Aces On Bridge by Bobby Wolff
Opening Lead: ♥J
Consider the play in four spades here, after an uninformative auction.
West starts by leading the heart jack to East’s ace, and a heart comes back. You win the trick in hand and presumably plan to draw as many rounds of trump as is appropriate, ending in hand. With three minor-suit losers looming if the cards are unfavorably located, can you see how to turn a good contract into an excellent one?
The answer is to lead the first trump to the jack, ruff dummy’s heart, then draw the second trump with the queen, (leaving a trump outstanding if it is West who has the length) and now lead a club to the eight, rather than to dummy’s jack.
Why? Well the answer is that when East takes the trick, he is guaranteed to be endplayed. He can only give you a ruff and discard (in which case you ruff in hand and pitch a diamond from dummy) or lead back a club or a diamond into dummy’s tenaces. Whichever minor he plays, you have the communication to be able to ensure that you lose only one more diamond trick, thus making your contract.
By contrast, if you had led a club to the jack as your first play in the suit, East would have won his queen and returned the suit. When clubs failed to break, you would have had to fall back on the diamond ace being onside. And when that chance also failed to come through for you, you would have been sunk.
Lead with the aces
Answer: ♥ Ace
Leading an unsupported ace is something you should try to avoid if there are viable alternatives, but today nothing else looks better. It may be that leading the heart ace will simply let you work out what you should have done, but there is no other choice that seems remotely attractive.
This Hand of the Day was originally published on aces.bridgeblogging.com.
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