The Aces On Bridge by Bobby Wolff
Opening Lead: ♥10
Today's deal offers an intriguing red herring, but if you focus on the essentials, you will not get it wrong.
As South you should jump to four spades over the opponents’ opening bid of one heart. Yes, you might buy short spades and long clubs opposite, but even if you do, your spades are almost self-supporting, and playing a minor takes you up a level. Additionally, you give far less information away with an auction of this sort than you do if you start with an action such as a Michaels Cue-bid.
Suppose you achieve your target — being doubled in four spades. Dummy may not offer quite as much as you had hoped for, but you ruff the opening lead and play the club 10 from hand, which West wins. That player continues with a second heart, and you ruff away East’s jack. Now what?
You must avoid the Greek gift of playing to ruff a club in dummy. If you do so, you will then have to shorten your trumps to get back to hand, and you will find that you will have to surrender trump control — and with it, the contract.
Better is to ignore the club ruff and simply to play the spade ace and jack. The defense will do best to win and shorten you again, but you can draw the last trump and then knock out the club ace, making your contract when that suits breaks 3-3 and spades are 3-2.
Lead with the aces
Answer: ♣4
It looks clear to lead a club, but which one is best? In my book leading a small club rates to protect against more positions (such as those where partner has a doubleton honor) than leading a top club, which tends to gain only when declarer or dummy has a doubleton club jack and partner has the 10.
This Hand of the Day was originally published on aces.bridgeblogging.com.
