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The Aces On Bridge by Bobby Wolff

Opening Lead: ♣K

Any contract that will make if a finesse succeeds cannot be considered hopeless. Sometimes, though, the auction will tell you that there has to be some better chance because the bidding has converted your 50 percent play into a no-hoper. Put yourself in South's shoes to see if you can spot the improvement.

When Denmark played Canada in the Venice Cup decades ago, both declarers (Francine Cimon and Trine Bilde) reached three no-trump and knew that the auction had indicated that the heart finesse would fail. They ducked the first two clubs and worked out that West had the long club from the defensive signals.

They won the third club and decided against trying to find a favorable heart distribution (such as playing East for the singleton or doubleton jack). Instead, they cashed the diamond ace and king, then the two top spades, and exited with the fourth club. At this point West had nothing but hearts left and had to lead into declarer’s acequeen to concede the ninth trick.

As you can see, the natural play might seem to be for declarer to win the second or third round of clubs and cash all the spade winners, but then there is no way back to hand to endplay West in clubs. To succeed, declarer needs to find West with relatively short spades and diamonds; but the auction has made that virtually a racing certainty.

Bid with the aces

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

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