The Aces On Bridge by Bobby Wolff
Opening Lead: ♠Q
You will stand a chance of identifying the technique required in today's deal only if you pay careful attention to the bidding.
Against four hearts the defenders take their top spades and a spade ruff. Now East shifts to the heart 10, and the ball is in your court. You have an almost inevitable diamond loser; in essence, you need West to have the doubleton club king, but perhaps if he has the club king and one diamond honor, he might somehow be brought under pressure on the run of the hearts. Can you see how you might put West in a bind?
The key is that West is a passed hand, so if he has both top spades and the club king, the only diamond honor he can hold is the jack.
You run three rounds of trumps ending on the table, then lead the diamond queen. East must cover with the king, and you take the trick with the ace, then run the rest of the trumps.
In the three-card ending, you hold the doubleton diamond 10 and one club, with the A-Q-J of clubs in dummy. If West has discarded the diamond jack, you cash the 10 and finesse in clubs. If not, you lead to the club jack, cash the ace, and score trick 13 with the club queen. Of course, if East had returned a club at trick four, there would have been no story (at least for you).
Bid with the aces
Answer: 1♥
With so much of your hand in clubs, I do not like a redouble here. My plan would be to bid one heart, ignoring the opponents' intervention, and making a forcing call. My intention would be to raise clubs in competition if necessary. But if partner rebids in no-trump, I would let him play there.
This Hand of the Day was originally published on aces.bridgeblogging.com.
