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The Aces On Bridge by Bobby Wolff

Opening Lead: ♦Q

In today's deal North's jump to five hearts showed good trumps and nothing else to say — just what South needed to hear. Declarer was lucky enough to receive a diamond lead against his slam, and therefore was in a position almost to ensure his contract.

South took the diamond queen lead with his king, drew trumps in three rounds ending in dummy, then cashed the ace and king of spades. Bad news: the 5-1 break meant that he could no longer take more than 11 tricks.

If declarer had received a club lead against his contract of six hearts, playing spades from the top would have been fine, since the defenders had established a winner and would be in a position to cash it as soon as they obtained the lead. So declarer would have needed to get the spades going without losing a trick to make his slam. (Declarer cannot afford spades to break worse than 4-2 — unless the jack is singleton — because two club discards are needed in dummy so that South’s second club can be ruffed.)

But after the diamond lead, once trumps are found to be 3-2, there is a cast-iron play for the slam. Win the third round of trumps in dummy, then run the spade 10. The spade jack is the only trick lost. Declarer can win the return, unblock spades, then run spades. Now dummy’s club losers vanish on the spades, and a club can then be ruffed in dummy.

Lead with the aces

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

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