The Aces On Bridge by Bobby Wolff
Opening Lead: ♠10
Imagine you reach the small slam in spades and receive the lead of the trump 10. To bring home 12 tricks, you will need to set up hearts, but the entries to dummy are scarce. After you win the spade ace and unblock the heart king; what next? It might look natural to ruff a diamond to dummy and ruff a heart to hand. But if hearts do not break, you are out of trump and doomed to go down.
The best plan now is somewhat counterintuitive. Since you must rely on trumps to be 3-2 and hearts no worse than 4-2, you should next play the club queen out of your hand.
If West wins the king and plays a trump — as good as anything — you win in dummy with the spade jack, ruff a heart low in hand, cross to dummy with the club jack, and ruff a heart with the spade king. Then you can cash the diamond ace and ruff a diamond to draw the last trump, with dummy high.
If West ducks the club queen, you change tack altogether. You go to dummy with a trump, then ruff a heart with the spade king. Now you can cross to dummy and draw the last trump by leading the spade four to the jack. Next you play the heart ace and another heart. You concede one heart trick, but the last trump in dummy is the entry back to all the good hearts.
Bid with the aces
Answer: Pass
I take a relatively relaxed view about the suit quality required for a weak-two when nonvulnerable, though if vulnerable I like to have two of the top three honors. Having said that, ace-sixth is the worst possible holding for a weak-two (you have no tricks facing shortage but lots of defense). Meanwhile, your good spade suit is another red flag against pre-empting. Pass at any vulnerability.
This Hand of the Day was originally published on aces.bridgeblogging.com.
