Hand of the day #687
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The Aces On Bridge by Bobby Wolff
Opening Lead: ♠K
When this deal came up at the rubber-bridge table, where the priority is to make your contract, not struggle for possibly irrelevant overtricks, declarer played too fast and suffered the consequences.
After a Stayman auction, North-South identified their heart fit, and the opening lead was the spade king to the ace. Declarer immediately won and led a diamond to the queen to play a trump to the king. When this held, but West showed out, declarer was doomed to lose three trump tricks and a spade, since East was left with the A-Q-9 of trumps poised over dummy’s J-10 of hearts.
The best policy on the deal is to focus on what you can afford to lose. The answer is that you do not mind losing two trump tricks, just so long as you do not lose three. After the initial spade lead, the defenders are not threatening a ruff, so you can afford to tackle trump safely.
Win the spade lead, then immediately lead a low heart at trick two toward the J-10. This limits declarer’s losses to two trumps and a spade, no matter which defender has the four trumps. The point is that once you discover who has the long trump, you can take the appropriate evasive action to negotiate the hearts, and the defenders can score only their two high trumps whatever they do.
Bid with the aces
Answer: 2♠
Since you'd double with any strong balanced hand, any action you take in a suit will be somewhat limited in high cards. A simple call of two spades (planning to come again in hearts) would be sensible enough. An alternative approach (if you trust your partner to be on the same wavelength) would be to cuebid two clubs to show both majors and a limited hand.
This Hand of the Day was originally published on aces.bridgeblogging.com.
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