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The Aces On Bridge by Bobby Wolff
Opening Lead: ♦2
Although it looks normal to play four spades unsuccessfully here, two tables found their way to the reasonable three-no-trump contract after South decided nine tricks would be easier than 10. Only one declarer, however, saw a way to persuade his opponents to help him come home with his contract.
Against the no-trump game both Wests chose the diamond two for their opening lead. One South played low from dummy, hoping that West’s holding in the suit included the jack. It did, but after taking his ace, East saw that he couldn’t persist with diamonds without giving declarer a trick in the suit. Accordingly, he switched to the club queen. Declarer held off and won the club continuation. All now depended on guessing who held the heart queen. In an attempt to get a count on the hand, South cashed the five spade winners, but this hardly helped him. He then decided (correctly) that East had probably started with more hearts than his partner and so finessed into the West hand. Unlucky!
At the other table, South saw he could avoid the heart guess if he could persuade the defenders to continue diamonds. At trick one he put up the diamond queen from the table and East won with the ace. South dropped first the four from hand, then the nine on the continuation. Placing his partner with an original three-card diamond holding, West led a third round of diamonds. South now won nine tricks without needing to resort to the heart guess.
Bid with the aces
Answer: Pass
Just because your partner might have only three diamonds does not mean he actually does — in fact he has more than four at least 95 percent of the time. That said, you should only raise to two diamonds with real support or decent responding values. This hand just fails to make the grade. Change the heart king to the ace, and I'd raise to two diamonds.
This Hand of the Day was originally published on aces.bridgeblogging.com.
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