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The Aces On Bridge by Bobby Wolff
Opening Lead: ♠K
Today's deal came up during one local segment of the Pakistan Bridge Federation's trials, held in Karachi years ago.
We all know that pre-emptive bids are designed to be obstructive by stealing bidding space from opponents, but they can backfire spectacularly, as here.
Against six diamonds West led the spade king. Declarer surveyed dummy and saw that life would have been easier had his diamond spots been just one jot stronger and North’s one weaker. He would then have had no problem in ridding dummy of its losing spades if he held the diamond eight and dummy the seven.
But given what he had to work with, he had little choice. Declarer quickly formed a plan that relied upon East’s cooperation. For the plan to work, East had to have at least two diamonds, one of them being the queen.
South took the lead in dummy, then smoothly cashed the diamond ace, hoping that he would catch East playing by rote. It would have taken great imagination on the part of East to divine South’s hand and jettison his diamond queen under the ace. After the diamond ace drew the two and three, declarer proceeded to cash dummy’s top cards in the rounded suits, then played a low diamond. In with the queen, East had no option but to give declarer access to hand with a club or heart, and the slam came home.
Bid with the aces
Answer: 3♣ or 4♣
The opponents are surely about to bid or jump in spades. Do you want to encourage them or partner to do more bidding? While you are not overloaded with high cards, you can offer partner some ruffs. I'd guess it was right to raise clubs. If nonvulnerable, I'd make a pre-emptive raise to four clubs. Vulnerable, I'd simply raise to three clubs, or pass if my partner is an aggressive bidder.
This Hand of the Day was originally published on aces.bridgeblogging.com.
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