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The Aces On Bridge by Bobby Wolff
Opening Lead: ♥3
Declaring six spades, you duck East's heart jack. He returns the heart king to your ace. Obviously East will have the spade king; if it is singleton or doubleton, making 12 tricks will be easy enough. What is your plan for overcoming the cases where he has three or four trumps to the king?
After winning the heart ace, cross to table with a club and run the trump eight. When that wins, lead the trump jack. East covers, and now you draw East’s last trump with the queen.
East’s most likely shapes in the minors are either 2-3 or 3-2. Thus West has to keep at least four cards in each minor. To exert some pressure on his minor-suit holdings, you cross to dummy in a minor suit, say clubs. When you ruff the heart six, what can West do?
You should assume that he will probably discard first from his five-card suit. If West discards a second club, you will cash the club king and ruff a club before returning to hand with a diamond ruff to cash the good club. If West discards a diamond, a diamond to the ace and a diamond ruff will establish a long diamond, and the club ruff is the entry to reach it.
Finally, if East had turned up with four trumps, you would need him to have begun with a 4-5-1-3 distribution. This would allow you to ruff a club in dummy and then squeeze West in the minors.
Bid with the aces
Answer: 2♥
There is certainly a case for using two diamonds as natural here and two hearts as a raise of spades. Regardless, two hearts seem to be the most unambiguous way to show a constructive spade raise while keeping the partnership at a safe level. You would make a simple raise to two spades with a small diamond instead of the ace.
This Hand of the Day was originally published on aces.bridgeblogging.com.
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