The Aces On Bridge by Bobby Wolff
Opening Lead: ♠Q
This sounds like a rhetorical question: which percentage line would you choose to take to make your contract — a 50-50 shot or a two-thirds chance? On today's hand, the declarer settled for the toss-up — and regretted it.
Against four hearts West made the natural lead of the spade queen, which East overtook with the king and returned a trump. Declarer acknowledged that hopes of a spade ruff in dummy for his 10th trick had all but departed and looked for an alternative. Naturally, it was to the diamond suit that he turned.
South won the trump switch and finished drawing trumps. Then he cashed the club ace, just in case the king was bare — unlikely, but a no-cost play — and turned his attention to diamonds. He entered dummy with its only entry, the diamond ace, then finessed the diamond jack. That was the 50-50 chance and it lost. The defenders were quick to cash their two spade tricks, and that meant one down.
And the two-thirds chance? At trick three, declarer does best to duck a diamond. With eight cards in a suit, the missing cards will break 3-2 just over two thirds of the time, as they do here.
The defense can do no better than cash their spade winner, then graciously concede the rest to declarer. If not, after trumps are drawn, even the second spade trick will disappear on dummy’s diamonds, giving declarer an overtrick.
Bid with the aces
Answer: 2♥
With a 10-count and three trumps, you normally have an option to invite or make a simple raise. The five-card side-suit and good controls argue for aggression; the bad trumps argue for caution. I'm on the fence here. If you play that the raise to two hearts is constructive (8-10), then it is reasonable to go for that. Going plus is never bad.
This Hand of the Day was originally published on aces.bridgeblogging.com.
