The Aces On Bridge by Bobby Wolff
Opening Lead: ♣K
They say that anyone can take a finesse, but an expert would always rather play for a squeeze. True enough if a little cynical; but in today's deal the expert's line wins, while the 50 percent line of the finesse leaves the palooka with egg on his face.
Both tables in a teams match reached six diamonds here. The club king was led and both declarers thoughtfully ducked in dummy to avoid having the ace ruffed away.
Both declarers ruffed the next top club and drew trumps. The first declarer cashed the three top spades, ending in dummy, then threw a spade on the club ace and ran the heart queen unsuccessfully.
The expert player drew trumps ending in dummy, ruffed a club and ran all the trumps. He then threw the heart jack on the last trump and followed this with the spade ace, king and then queen. The last of these reduced West to a singleton heart, since he had to keep two clubs to match dummy’s length.
But next came the club ace, which also squeezed East down to just one heart, since he in turn needed to retain the spade jack, to counter declarer’s spade eight. Now declarer could discard his spade eight and play a heart to his ace, knowing his heart two was good.
This line of play is guaranteed to succeed, since West cannot have four spades to the jack, to go with his three diamonds and seven clubs.
And yes, if East had ruffed his partner’s winner to play a heart he would have broken up the squeeze.
Bid with the aces
Answer: 4♥
There are really only two sequences that the world agrees can sensibly be played as Gerber, ace-asking. This is one of them, the other being after a two -no-trump opening bid. Responses, unless you have specifically agreed to play something else, are as in standard Blackwood: Zero or four, one, two, three, so this hand should bid four hearts now.
This Hand of the Day was originally published on aces.bridgeblogging.com.
