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The Aces On Bridge by Bobby Wolff
Opening Lead: ♥3
Today's problem comes from "A Great Deal of Bridge Problems" by Julian Pottage, who is one of the more creative bridge writers around. His collections, written clearly and incisively, are aimed at players who are already experienced enough to compete in duplicate tournaments.
You find yourself in seven clubs, on a heart lead. What is the best play to the first three tricks? Clearly you must win the heart ace at trick one, and you appear to have 13 winners — so you need to plan for what can possibly go wrong.
If trumps break, everything is easy, so you need to cater to East’s holding all four clubs. Obviously, if West has all four trumps you are doomed to disaster, whatever you do.
If you cash the club king at trick two, you will find yourself short of entries to dummy to draw trump and run the diamonds. The trick is to unblock the diamonds before touching trump, so after taking the heart ace, you must cash the diamond ace. Now you play the club king (West discarding) and once the bad trump break has come to light, you simply run winning diamonds through East. As soon as he ruffs, you overruff, draw trump ending in dummy, and cash your long diamond.
You finish up taking three discards on the diamonds when the suit breaks 4-3, since East ruffs one of your winners. But three discards are all you need.
Bid with the aces
Answer: 2♣
There is no perfect answer here. A call of two no-trump would show your values but risk getting too high or wrong-siding no-trump. The only option is to invent a club suit by bidding two clubs. If the auction stops here, you may have fallen on your feet. If partner reverts to diamonds, you might risk a two-heart call. And finally, if partner repeats hearts, you can raise him.
This Hand of the Day was originally published on aces.bridgeblogging.com.
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