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The Aces On Bridge by Bobby Wolff
Opening Lead: ♥6
I was given this deal with just the North and South cards and was told that this hand was originally published in a French newspaper. I thought it was an extremely challenging problem. Do you agree?
As South, you reach four spades after making a disciplined pass in second seat, despite the vulnerability. However, facing partner’s double of one heart, you can hardly do less than bid game. When dummy comes down, you see a disappointing wastage in hearts. How should you plan the play?
A natural move is to come to hand and lead up to the spade king, hoping for the ace to be favorably placed for you. As the cards lie, that line will not work. A better approach is to assume that at least one of the two missing aces must be onside, but you should first try to find the diamond ace onside. If it is not, you can fall back with complete confidence on the play of leading to the spade king.
Almost the only line to succeed is to ruff the first trick and lead a diamond toward the king. If West ducks his ace, you win dummy’s king, pitch your diamonds on dummy’s hearts, then lead a spade to the king for overtricks. If West flies up with his diamond ace, you have only one diamond loser, so can discard both your club losers on the hearts and again play on spades for overtricks.
Bid with the aces
Answer: Pass
When the opponents intervene over a transfer bid, you should not go out of your way to complete the transfer at the three-level with only three trumps, unless your hand offers considerable extra offense. Here your hand is only average for play in hearts so you should pass. By contrast, if partner had transferred into spades, your fourth trump would make it clear to bid three spades over three clubs.
This Hand of the Day was originally published on aces.bridgeblogging.com.
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