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The Aces On Bridge by Bobby Wolff
Opening Lead: ♣5
Today's deal came from the knockout stages of the Seniors event in the Asia Pacific games in Fukuoka, Japan. The deal shown swung the match — but not in the way you might expect.
Where Hirata Yamada and Kyoko Ohno were West and East respectively, East’s decision to pass one spade let her opponents back into the auction, and East-West finished up defending three no-trump. Yamada led a low club to the first trick – an interesting choice, because partner was marked with club shortage. Declarer won in dummy and led a diamond to the jack, queen and ace. Yamada now accurately shifted to the spade 10, and declarer was now dead. He covered with the jack, and East won and cleared spades. West was sure now to get in with the club ace and could then cash out the spades. Down one for 50 looks like a good result for East-West.
However, in the companion room there was no easy way into the East-West auction when East raised to two spades instead of passing one spade. After a diamond lead, declarer Hideo Togawa ruffed two diamonds and a club in dummy and two hearts in hand. Then he led a third heart and played safe by ruffing high, following a guaranteed line for eight tricks. So he finished up making 110.
Accordingly, Yamada’s textbook play had held the loss on the board to 2 IMPs — and an eventual loss in the match by just one IMP.
Bid with the aces
Answer: 1NT
You have a pretty good hand for a simple one-no-trump response to an overcall, but what are the options? A jump to two no-trump should show a full opening bid, while a cue-bid almost guarantees support for partner. Since you have no suit you can voluntarily introduce, bid one no-trump. It is acceptable to have full values for your bidding once in a while.
This Hand of the Day was originally published on aces.bridgeblogging.com.
If you’re a BBO+ member, you can now play the Hand of the Day directly on BBO as part of your membership benefits.
Go to the BBO+ section, select BBO+ Games and Events, then click Play Today’s Deal to give it a try and compare your result with the players featured in the article.
