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The Aces On Bridge by Bobby Wolff
Opening Lead: ♣Q
In the play of the hand it is generally sound technique to leave the best prospect till last. My experience has been that if a suit is breaking at the start of the hand, it will still be breaking toward the end of the deal; and even the best defenders sometimes let the wrong things go early in the play.
In today’s deal when South opened a strong no-trump and North raised to game, West led the club queen to East’s ace. South ducked the club return but won the next, perforce, East discarding a spade. There are now eight top tricks and the ninth could come from any of the other three suits. The best suit to play on is not diamonds but hearts, and declarer duly led a low heart to dummy’s 10 and East’s jack. Back came a low spade, taken in hand.
There was now time to test hearts for a 3-3 break. When the suit broke 4-2, South threw East in with the fourth round of the suit and East exited with the spade queen, on which West followed with the 10.
Declarer now knew that West had started with five clubs, and East appeared to have begun with five spades — the clue being his spade discard at trick three. Accordingly, South decided West had a doubleton in each major and thus four diamonds. So he continued with the diamond ace and queen. When both opponents followed, he finessed against West’s diamond jack for his ninth trick.
Bid with the aces
Answer: Show the majors
What defense do you have when the opponents open one no-trump? No matter what convention you use, the number-one priority is to be able to show both majors with a method such as Landy, where a call of two clubs is artificial and shows the majors. As a passed hand I would act — if necessary bidding two spades, should two clubs not be available to me for the majors.
This Hand of the Day was originally published on aces.bridgeblogging.com.
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