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The Aces On Bridge by Bobby Wolff
Opening Lead: ♣5
Today's deal is in response to a reader's letter about defensive signals other than attitude. As usual, there is not necessarily a single best way to pass on a message to your partner — in fact this article will suggest two entirely separate methods of signaling, and all you have to do is to establish with your partner which way you prefer.
You are defending four spades after partner has led the club five. Dummy’s ace wins and declarer plays ace and another spade. What do you lead after winning your spade king?
Let’s spell out what the two options are for signaling in trumps. The first, and somewhat more common one, is to play that a high-low signal in trumps suggests a desire to ruff. Therefore, if partner followed with the five then three of trumps, he must have a singleton club, and you should play a second club for him to ruff. Partner will score his heart ace, and later on, your club queen will be the setting trick.
The alternative and slightly more flexible approach is to use your play in trumps as suit preference, thus playing up the line asks for the low suit, while echoing in trump asks for the higher suit. If using this method, West will play the three, then four, of trump, and East will again give him the ruff.
Suit-preference gives you slightly more options because you can sometimes send a message for all three of the outstanding suits, while echoing for a ruff is a binary signal.
Bid with the aces
Answer: Double
When the opponents intervene over one no-trump with a natural call or a bid that shows two suits, one of them being the bid suit, a sensible method for you to use is that all first doubles (from either side of the table) are for takeout. All subsequent doubles should be for penalty. Here, you can double two diamonds and plan to raise spades, or pass a two-heart response.
This Hand of the Day was originally published on aces.bridgeblogging.com.
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