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The Aces On Bridge by Bobby Wolff
Opening Lead: ♦10
When today's deal came up, Ziggy Marcinski of Canada not only solved this problem, but also submitted it to the bulletin, thereby earning himself special thanks from those who like a good puzzle.
Put yourself in his position: You declare four spades after East has suggested a two-suited hand with diamonds and a major. Against your game, West leads the diamond 10. Plan the play.
The key to the deal is not whether to finesse or play for the drop in trumps — it is surely right to finesse. Given that the spade finesse rates to work, can you guard against a 3-0 break in trumps when you might lose a club, two diamonds and a trump?
The answer is yes, but you must be careful to strip the hand. You should win dummy’s diamond ace and lead a heart to your jack at trick two! Your idea is to try to keep East off lead for the duration of the deal, thus preventing him from being able to cash his diamond winners.
West takes the heart and plays a club. You win and run the spade queen, ducked by West. East shows out, so you cash the heart ace to pitch a club, then ruff out the clubs, cash the spade ace, and throw West in with the spade king to give you a ruff-sluff for the contract.
Bid with the aces
Answer: 3♦
Despite your awkward holding of three small cards in declarer's second suit, you have just enough to jump to three diamonds to suggest invitational values and diamond support. Aces tend to be somewhat undervalued in a complex hand of this sort. (With the king-jack of spades instead of the ace, you might content yourself with a call of two diamonds.)
This Hand of the Day was originally published on aces.bridgeblogging.com.
You can now play the hand of the day on BBO+ and compare how you get on with the players in the article.
