The Aces On Bridge by Bobby Wolff
Opening Lead: ♣J
Today's deal comes from a head-to-head encounter in a match between two New York country clubs. At one table the North-South pair had missed their respectable slam, but were delighted to find that they had picked up a big swing when the player in the South seat had chosen the wrong time to apply expert technique.
If you simply focus on the heart suit, you have probably been taught that the right way to guard against a 4-1 break is to cash a top honor from hand and lead up to the king. However, that play would only be critical if there were no side-entries to dummy — and here the entries to the North hand plentiful.
So you can focus your energy on other problem distributions. Since you will never guess to play West for four hearts and are not bothered by East’s having four hearts to the jack as we have seen, all that remains in the way of problem distributions are the 5-0 breaks.
Correct technique in the slam after the club-jack lead runs around to the king is to lead a heart to the king. Now you can pick up East’s trump with ease because your spot cards allow for two finesses. Of course, if West had followed to the first heart, you would play a heart to the queen, then cross back to dummy with a spade for the marked finesse, if necessary.
Lead with the aces
Answer: ♣5
No lead looks very attractive. My best guess would be to lead a low club, thinking that declarer does not rate to have any honors in the suit, and partner will surely be able to work that out. But declarer might easily misguess if dummy has the king and jack — or he might not put up an unsupported king.
This Hand of the Day was originally published on aces.bridgeblogging.com.
