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The Aces On Bridge by Bobby Wolff
Opening Lead: ♣K
In today's deal, played in a pairs event, North took the reasonable approach of not disclosing his four-card trump support at his first turn, since he had such a balanced hand, but of subsequently competing to the three-level because he knew his side had a nine-card trump fit.
Since West could only have been stopped from taking nine tricks in a club contract via a trump promotion, the onus for his side was to extract as much as possible from defending a spade partscore. With the opponents vulnerable, plus 100 would represent an average score, plus 200 an excellent one.
The club king held the first trick, East echoing to suggest not only a doubleton club, but also a spade higher than dummy’s biggest trump, West shifted to the heart jack. (The heart nine would also have sufficed, but as you can see, a small heart would not have worked if declarer had guessed to duck in dummy.) The defense now took its three top heart tricks and reverted to clubs. West won the trick and played a third club, and since East was able to overruff dummy, the defense had six tricks and all the matchpoints.
The trap for the defense was to avoid taking the club ruff before playing on hearts. Had they done so, then dummy’s vulnerable heart suit would have been protected from attack. Declarer wins the trump or diamond return and takes nine tricks with East making just the heart ace at the end.
Bid with the aces
Answer: Pass
My general experience is that it is neither wise nor necessary to overcall a strong no-trump with this balanced hand-pattern, no matter what the strength of the hand might be. All too often, one gets to defend three no-trump if one stays silent, while bidding helps alert the opponents to the potential problem. Incidentally, if West transfers to hearts, you might well decide to bid at your next turn.
This Hand of the Day was originally published on aces.bridgeblogging.com.
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Dear Bobby Wolff, it is rare that I can find a mistake in your excellent columns. But today in hand 805 I cant see a trump promotion against 3 clubs as south ruffs from 3 not 2.That makes the defence even more vital.
Greetings from Holland.
RiniKuijf@gmail.com