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The Aces On Bridge by Bobby Wolff
Opening Lead: ♠10
Life can sometimes be very tough at the bridge table. Here, from the U.S. Nationals, is an example of an elegant defense, to no avail. In Standard American, fourth suit is game forcing by an unpassed hand, so North compromised at his second turn with a heavy raise to two spades, coming to rest in a sensible spot.
Declarer won the opening lead of the spade 10 in dummy (an intelligent shot from West, who could see the threat of a crossruff looming) and played a diamond to the king and ace. Now West played the club ace and a second club, and declarer guessed well to put in the jack. East ruffed and returned a low spade, and South rose with the ace, finding yet more bad news.
Declarer next took the diamond queen and ruffed a diamond. At this point, needing four more tricks for his contract, South led the club king, which East had to ruff. Now East made another good play. It would have been easy to exit with a diamond, but South would have ruffed, drawn the last trump, then played a heart to the jack to endplay East. Foreseeing this, East got off lead with the heart queen, ensuring another two tricks for his side for one down. Not surprisingly, though, East-West lost IMPs on the board for their performance. At the other table North-South were unable to stop so low, and went quietly two down in two no-trump.
Bid with the aces
Answer: 2♠
The fact that you have a balanced hand with decent defense against clubs should not deter you for a second from competing to two spades. Yes, your LHO rates to have four spades, but your partner knew that when he bid one spade, and he should not have any trouble negotiating trump finesses, if any.
This Hand of the Day was originally published on aces.bridgeblogging.com.
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