The Aces On Bridge by Bobby Wolff
Opening Lead: ♠Q
The swing that arose in today's deal resulted from one team's aggression in both rooms. At one table South opened two no-trump with very little excuse, and North bounced to six diamonds. East closed his eyes and guessed to lead a spade, giving declarer a discard for his heart loser. But when he played the trump suit in normal fashion, he had to go down a trick.
In the other room West stretched to show his two-suiter, and got his opponents to slam the correct way up. Worse was to follow from his perspective since he had a horrible lead problem. It is rarely correct to lead an ace against six no-trump. But eventually West started with ace and another spade, which turned out to do no serious harm, declarer winning in hand as East gave count.
West’s two-suited bid had given declarer a very good idea of his general shape. He knew 10 of that player’s cards, but what was his minor-suit pattern? Declarer set out to find out more, cashing two rounds of clubs ending in dummy. When West followed suit, declarer knew 12 of West’s 13 cards, and it was now a 4-1 shot that he had a singleton small diamond rather than the bare jack. Accordingly, declarer ran the diamond 10 next. When it held, he unblocked the diamonds, crossed to the club king, and ran the diamond suit. He took tricks 12 and 13 with his heart and club winners.
Lead with the aces
Answer: ♦ Lead
With the cards apparently lying badly for declarer, you might elect to go passive here with a club lead. I am not convinced about this. My instincts are to try to set up or cash diamond winners for our side before they go away on the clubs, one way or another.
This Hand of the Day was originally published on aces.bridgeblogging.com.
