The Aces On Bridge by Bobby Wolff
Opening Lead: ♦A
It is a foul libel, put out by the players, that the only people who direct tournaments are those who are not good enough to play in them. One example of a director who is an expert player is Olin Hubert, the hero of today's deal.
Olin is old enough to have been playing in an era when his partner’s bid of three hearts showed a good hand, not a pre-emptive raise. Against four hearts, West led the diamond ace and continued the suit. Olin won in hand and crossed to the spade jack to run the heart queen.
When West won and returned a spade, Olin had four possible lines of play. He could run the hearts, then the spades, pitching a diamond, or he could pitch a club on the last one. Equally, he could run spades, pitching a diamond, then take the hearts, or he could pitch a club on the spades before taking the hearts. What looks best to you?
Olin correctly drew two only rounds of trumps, then cashed the remaining spades, discarding a club from hand. His plan was to find East with the club queen in addition to his original holding of five diamonds.
Now, on the run of the trumps, East needed to retain the diamond jack, so had to bare his club queen. Olin led the club king from hand at trick 12 to smother the queen, and West had to bring the entryless dummy back to life at trick 13. Contract made!
Bid with the aces
Answer: 2♠
You have a number of palatable choices, namely raising spades, repeating clubs, or bidding one no-trump. With only one diamond stopper, bidding no-trump feels wrong. Raising spades with three small cards is also not ideal, and the simple rebid in my own suit is not attractive with such weak clubs. I'll bid two spades.
This Hand of the Day was originally published on aces.bridgeblogging.com.
