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The Aces On Bridge by Bobby Wolff
Opening Lead: ♦3
See if you can play four spades as well as Philip Soulet did in the round of 64 of the Spingold Knockout Teams in Philadelphia.
West led the diamond three, and. East covered dummy’s diamond 10 with the king. Soulet (South) won the diamond ace, took the top two spades (learning that West had three to the queen), then cashed the top two hearts, West following with the queen and 10.
Soulet then exited with the diamond jack. West won the queen and could cash his spade winner, but had no good play from there. Since a diamond would have given a ruff and discard and let declarer pitch his heart loser from hand, West switched to a club, but Soulet could put in dummy’s nine. Had this forced the king, he would have had no club loser at all. When East could cover with the 10, Soulet won cheaply and drove out the heart jack. He could win the club return with the ace and lead a trump to dummy to discard his losing club on the heart eight.
In practice, though, so long as West held either the 10 or king of clubs, it didn’t matter whether West’s doubleton heart consisted of high or low cards. Had the queen and 10 of hearts not appeared, then after winning the club queen, Soulet could have cashed the club ace and thrown West in with the club king. That would have forced a ruff and discard to make the contract.
Bid with the aces
Answer: 1NT
It looks tempting to raise to two clubs, but with your soft stoppers in the majors, it feels better to limit the hand with a call of one no-trump. If the opponents compete again, you might bid on to three clubs, but for the time being, I'd consider your hand one on which to aim low.
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.
