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The Aces On Bridge by Bobby Wolff
Opening Lead: ♥3
There are few bridge players whose names have entered into common parlance — perhaps Stayman and Blackwood are two that have achieved immortality. Another possible candidate, at least in the expert community, is Alphonse Moyse, whose championing of the 4-3 trump fit meant that this holding is often referred to as a Moysian fit.
Moyse, whose heyday as a player was in the 1950s and who was a long-time editor of the Bridge World magazine, was credited with playing this grand slam, in which the auction is a throw-back to earlier and simpler times.
The two-heart opening was strong, and the three-diamond bid was a free bid promising extra values. Four no-trump was Culbertson, promising three aces, and the seven-heart call was not unreasonable, in the hope that North had six diamonds.
West led a trump against the grand slam, and Moyse could have settled for the club finesse, but the auction had suggested that West had most of the outstanding cards. Accordingly Moyse played five rounds of trump, discarding the club queen from dummy. Then came the spade ace followed by the run of the diamonds.
As Moyse placed West with the club king, there was no escape for the defenders. The spade queen in dummy forced West to keep his king, and thus to bare his club king. At trick 12 Moyse played a club to the ace, taking the last two tricks and bringing home the grand slam.
Lead with the aces
Answer: ♦ Lead
If you could get opening leads of this sort right every time, you would never lose any event at bridge again! This is a problem with no right answer. A club lead is absurd, but a spade away from the ace into a strong hand is unattractive, while a heart lead is too likely to clear up a guess for declarer. That leaves a diamond — not so attractive either, I admit.
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.
I love to dream and I will a long a I live, therefore; I will lead a SPADE!