Hand of the day #211
The Aces On Bridge by Bobby Wolff This column aims to amuse, as well as to educa...
The Aces On Bridge by Bobby Wolff
Alphonse “Sonny” Moyse was a great advocator of playing in 4-3 fits. He may have gone overboard in espousing it, but it is true that players tend to shy away automatically from such a fit without giving enough consideration to its merits.
Opening Lead: ♦Q
This Moysian fit, from the 1972 Vanderbilt semifinal, demonstrates that the key is frequently the possession of good trump intermediates.
In one room South played the apparently normal contract of six no-trump. Even on a helpful club lead, declarer was not well placed. He could do little except pass the heart jack at trick two, because of the lack of entries to dummy. When that lost and the spades were unfriendly, he had to go one down.
In the other room my teammate Jim Jacoby played six hearts on the lead of the diamond queen to his king. He took the spade ace-king and ruffed a spade low. Then came the diamond ace (on which a club was thrown), and the club ace-king. Now, when everyone followed, his slam was cold against any lie of the cards.
He played a third spade and could ruff with the heart king for safety if West followed suit. Then he could ruff a club with the trump ace and ruff another spade with the heart nine. Since he held the J-10-8 of trumps in hand, he was sure to take three of the last four tricks against any defense.
Bid with the aces
Answer: 3♦
Although you have no serious prospects of buying the contract, the best thing to do is to reraise to three diamonds. This is NOT a game-try. If you had extras, you would bid a new suit, so this is a bar bid, just trying to block the opponents and take away their bidding space.
This Hand of the Day was originally published on aces.bridgeblogging.com.
3 diamond