The Aces On Bridge by Bobby Wolff

Opening Lead: ♣K

Singleton trump honors can be a mixed blessing. If a defender holds the singleton trump ace, it is often clear that it should be unblocked as soon as possible, but such a play is harder when the singleton honor is the king or queen.

After his opening bid to show six clubs and fewer than 16 points, West led a top club, played a second top club, then a third club. On this trick East thought for a while, then ruffed with the nine and was overruffed. Declarer now cashed the two top hearts, ruffed a heart, took the king and ace of diamonds,s and led a low spade. When East followed low, declarer decided that East’s pause at trick three indicated he had started life with a top spade honor; therefore, whichever honor West had was singleton. So he played low, and West had to win and was endplayed. Whatever he led gave declarer a ruff and discard, and dummy’s last diamond disappeared.

West missed his chance to beat the game, though in practice few would have found the defense. He could have shifted to the spade king, leaving declarer with no chance as the cards lay. While it is true that unblocking the spade king would have worked well on this layout, West might have looked rather foolish if declarer had held better spades and weaker diamonds. However, perhaps a heart switch at trick two might have given West a chance to find the winning defense later on.

Bid with the aces

This Hand of the Day was originally published on aces.bridgeblogging.com.

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