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: ♥K
In today's deal, after North's strong jump-shift and subsequent raise of spades, South is justified in trying for slam by cuebidding five clubs because of his good trumps and fitting diamond honor,. When North then cue-bids five hearts, it is a reasonable gamble for South to jump to slam because of his good trump intermediates.
When West leads the heart king against the slam, South must win the opening lead, of course. The heart lead threatens the contract, as declarer cannot afford to attack trumps immediately. So how does South get his heart loser away?
It is illogical for declarer to lead clubs before diamonds. It is far simpler to try to discard one heart from declarer’s hand rather than trying for two heart discards from dummy.
All declarer needs is to find the diamonds breaking 4-3, but today is not his lucky day. When South tries to discard a heart on dummy’s diamonds, East inconveniently ruffs the third round. Declarer should now re-enter dummy with a club to lead the fourth round of diamonds, hoping that East has no more spades (or only the ace remaining).
When East foils this plot again by ruffing the fourth diamond as well, South must overruff and fall back on his own club suit to discard hearts from the dummy. West ruffs the fourth club, but, fortunately for declarer, he must ruff with the trump ace while the last heart is discarded from dummy.
Lead with the aces
Answer: ♠2
When you have nothing but a choice of dangerous leads, you might as well lead from length. At least this way you know that you have a more than 50 percent chance to be setting up long cards for your side. For what it is worth, my second choice would be a low heart.
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.
Lead KQ clubs from N, then rein to S with a small D to S . play The Ace and Jack of clubs from S, if W trumps with A of spades you make it he ducks , you make it. If not you still make 6 Spades
Lead KQ clubs from N, then rein to S with a small D to S . play The Ace and Jack of clubs from S, if W trumps with A of spades you make it he ducks , you make it. If not you still make 6 Spades