The Aces On Bridge by Bobby Wolff
Opening Lead: ♥4
What a difference a day makes. In the semifinals of the NEC tournament we had seen Sabine Auken and Roy Welland unable to put a foot wrong; on the next day the boot was on the other foot.
Today’s deal was just one instance of that. Their opponents even managed to locate the correct eight-card fit on what appeared to be a straight toss-up as to whether game or slam might be better — not to mention in which suit one should come to rest.
In the other room, where Rees Milner and Hemant Lall had somewhat pessimistically decided to come to rest in four hearts, they had hopes of gain when all the key suits split so badly.
However, Sjoert Brink and Mikhail Krasnosselski avoided the first hurdle when they landed in six spades, not six hearts, and overcame the second hurdle on opening lead. Either minor-suit lead takes the entry out of dummy prematurely, but you can hardly blame Sabine Auken for leading her singleton heart. Declarer won, tested trumps, then tested hearts, finding the doubly bad news. Then he went to the club ace, played the heart ace, ruffed out the hearts, cashed the last top trump from hand, then ruffed a club to dummy.
East could overruff, but then was endplayed; he had to lead diamonds back into dummy’s tenace. So the swing was 13 IMPs to Russia instead of the same number the other way.
Bid with the aces
Answer: 4♥
Your partner cannot hold spades, or he would have bid the suit at his first turn. This sequence (sometimes referred to as "the impossible spade bid" should suggest a good raise to three hearts, and your aces and 6-4 pattern more than make up for your weak trump spots. Jump to four hearts now.
This Hand of the Day was originally published on aces.bridgeblogging.com.
