The Aces On Bridge by Bobby Wolff
Opening Lead: ♥A
Decades ago Marty Fleisher and Eric Rodwell paired up in a first-time partnership to win the Cavendish pairs. Today's deal comes from that event.
Rodwell is never one to hold back when game is in the offing, and on this occasion, when his partner forced him to act at the three-level, he felt he had something in reserve, hence his jump to four spades. Best defense is a club lead — and maybe East should have bid three clubs over the double to help his partner.
Still, West’s choice of the heart ace, to determine which minor to shift to, was a reasonable one. Unluckily for him, the club shift came too late. Rodwell played low, and East took the jack and exited with a second heart. Rodwell ruffed and played off the top spades, ruffed a second heart, then cashed four diamonds, ending in dummy. Now he led a trump, and in the two-card ending East had to play clubs into dummy’s tenace to concede the 10th trick.
As mentioned above, the idea of playing that responder to a weak-two can make lead-directing calls after his RHO has doubled is a sensible one, and dates back remarkably far. (50 years ago.) This idea was first proposed in Bridge World and is called McCabe, after its inventor. The idea is that when second hand doubles a weak-two bid, new suits at the three-level by the next player show tolerance for partner’s suit, but are primarily for the lead of the bid suit.
Bid with the aces
Answer: 4♥
I'd expect your partner to have short spades and long diamonds, with enough values to drive to game. (With 5-6 shape he would bid two spades, then repeat the suit.) Three no-trump is not an option, but in the context of your initially limited action, you do have decent cards for slam if partner is really strong. So you can now bid four hearts as a cue-bid for diamonds, to see if that gets partner excited.
This Hand of the Day was originally published on aces.bridgeblogging.com.
