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The Aces On Bridge by Bobby Wolff
Opening Lead: ♥3
In this deal from the U.S. trials, six clubs has to be played by South, or else a diamond lead through the ace-queen would be fatal. How would you play the slam on a heart lead?
You must avoid leading a spade to the king and ace, or else a diamond return will put you on the spot. Are you going to play for the diamond finesse or for spades to behave? Best is to win the lead in dummy and lead a low spade from the board toward your queen. If West wins the trick, you get to test spades before playing on diamonds. But if it is East with the spade ace, he is caught in a Morton’s Fork Coup.
East cannot fly up with his ace, or declarer can establish three discards for dummy’s diamonds on the top heart and two spades. So East ducks the spade, whereupon declarer wins the queen. Now he discards the spade loser on the hearts, and is almost home. As the cards lie, he can simply draw trump and give up a diamond.
But it is best after pitching the spade loser to play the diamond queen from hand. If the defenders take this, you can unblock diamonds and draw trump. If the diamond queen is ducked, you take two top trumps from hand, and claim if clubs split. If they don’t, you cash the diamond ace, draw trump, then give up a diamond for your 12th trick.
Bid with the aces
Answer: 6♦
It might be possible to find a more sophisticated approach, but in my opinion there is a lot to be said for simply jumping to six diamonds. If you want to use an ace-asking bid en route, that is fine. But unless you are playing with a very wild pre-empter, you rate to have 12 top tricks, and even if you are off two spade winners, the defenders may have to cash them.
This Hand of the Day was originally published on aces.bridgeblogging.com.
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