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: ♥5
In today's deal, South took two good views, one in the bidding and one in the play.
To start with, he decided that his 5-5 shape would play better in four spades than in three no-trump, and rather than look for alternative strains, he bid the suit game at his second turn. Right he was: The no-trump game can be defeated via repeated heart leads.
Following this, South had to negotiate the play after the lead of the heart five to dummy’s king. Seeing the paucity of entries to his hand, South decided to go after diamonds at once and simply led a low diamond from dummy. He was prepared to concede three diamond tricks — that would still allow him to take 10 tricks if everything else behaved normally.
At trick two, East won the diamond king and continued the attack on hearts. Dummy’s heart ace won the trick, and the diamond 10 was led. East took the trick and played a third heart, forcing South to ruff. It would have done West little good to pitch his diamond jack, so he threw a club, letting South lead a third diamond for East to ruff.
East had no winning play. If he led a heart, declarer would ruff in hand, cash the club ace, then crossruff for the rest of the tricks. On any other return, declarer would simply draw trumps and take his diamond winners.
Bid with the aces
Answer: 2♣
One can make a case for rebidding one no-trump to get across the basic nature of the hand (minimum and balanced), but in fact the intermediates in the long suits argue for the simple rebid in clubs. Whatever anyone tells you, a hand with a 5-4-2-2 pattern is better off for play in a suit than in no-trump, all things being equal.
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.
