You can now play the hand of the day on BBO+ and compare how you get on with the players in the article.
The Aces On Bridge by Bobby Wolff
Opening Lead: ♠10
Recently I have shown you some deals originally written up in Dutch IMP magazine, which were played by the GIB computer, developed by Matthew Ginsberg.
Here GIB correctly tackles a set hand prepared by the master teacher Fred Gitelman. South plays six no-trump after a three-heart pre-empt by West, who leads the spade 10. How should declarer develop the diamonds and hearts to get an extra trick from each suit?
After taking two clubs to get the count in that suit, declarer leads the diamond jack from dummy. East can see that if he takes the ace and continues diamonds, declarer will cash his clubs and spades, ending in dummy, and West will be subjected to a simple squeeze in the red suits.
So East ducks the diamond, but South has no realistic chance except to rise with the king, and rattle off his black-suit winners, first the clubs, pitching hearts from dummy, then the spades.
After the last spade, dummy has one heart and two diamonds, while declarer has his two hearts and a small diamond. Since West has to keep two hearts, he must come down to the bare diamond queen. East has three diamonds to the ace left; when a diamond is led from dummy, what does he do?
If East rises with the ace, he crashes his partner’s queen and sets up dummy’s diamond for the 12th trick. So East ducks, and West is thrown in, forced to lead a heart into South’s tenace. Contract made!
Bid with the aces
Answer: Pass
Every partnership should have an agreement as to which passes of redoubles are to play, and which ask partner to bid, simply indicating "nothing to say." Partner's second pass ought to be for penalties; the opponents have not announced a fit and your partner must surely have a four-card suit to bid. So if he chooses to pass, he must have clubs, and you should be happy to defend.
This Hand of the Day was originally published on aces.bridgeblogging.com.
If you’re a BBO+ member, you can now play the Hand of the Day directly on BBO as part of your membership benefits.
Go to the BBO+ section, select BBO+ Games and Events, then click Play Today’s Deal to give it a try and compare your result with the players featured in the article.
