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The Aces On Bridge by Bobby Wolff
Opening Lead: ♥3
When this deal came up in a knockout match at a recent regional tournament, both tables reached the spade game despite East's opening bid. North doubled the one-heart opening bid, and at one table heard a one-spade response and simply jumped to game, while in the other room North followed the sequence shown here.
By agreement the jump to three hearts showed precisely four trumps and forcing values, and was designed to insure that North-South did not reach a 4-3 fit if South had been obliged to respond in a three-card suit.
In the first room South won the heart lead and went after trumps by leading them from the top. The 4-1 trump break left declarer with just nine tricks. Playing on clubs before trumps would have probably led to defeat as well, so South considered that he had simply been unlucky, but the declarer in the other room demonstrated that there was more to the deal than that.
Here South realized that he could afford two trump losers but not three. As he knew East would surely have the spade ace, he found the best play of a low spade from dummy at trick two. When the ace popped up, declarer had achieved his goal of holding his trump losers to two. But had the defenders won the first trump trick cheaply, declarer would have regained the lead and led out a top trump. This would have been proof against almost any lie of the cards.
Bid with the aces
Answer: Pass
It is largely a matter of partnership agreement here, but I suggest a simple agreement: double is 0-4 HCP, and pass is semipositive, forcing to game. New suits are natural and suggest a decent suit and seven or more HCP. The make-up of this hand would allow you to go either way between a double and pass, but I would opt for the more aggressive action.
This Hand of the Day was originally published on aces.bridgeblogging.com.
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