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The Aces On Bridge by Bobby Wolff
Opening Lead: ♥3
I was saddened to hear of the death of Bobby Richman, an American who moved to Australia and represented that country internationally for over two decades. When you look at all four hands here, you may wonder how Richman could make four hearts — and indeed, the solution is extremely elegant.
Although declarer can eventually set up the diamonds, the defenders will by then have taken two diamonds and two clubs. But after West led a low trump, Richman won the ace, overtook the trump queen with the king, and played three more rounds of trumps, throwing two clubs and a diamond from the dummy and squeezing East.
East could afford two small clubs. But on the next trump he could not throw a spade, or declarer would establish a long spade in dummy with a spade ruff — having the diamond ace as the entry to it. Nor could he discard a diamond, or declarer would set up that suit for one loser. East therefore bared the club ace. No harm appears to have been done yet, but Richman now ducked a diamond, West winning and switching to a club to East’s ace.
That player had no club to return, so shifted to a spade. Declarer won with the king and continued with ace and another diamond, setting up that suit. It was East who won the trick, perforce. With no club left, he had to play a spade to the ace, and declarer now discarded his remaining club on the long diamond.
Bid with the aces
Answer: 3♠
This one looks relatively simple to me — which is not always a good sign… With decent support in context, but a minimum in high-cards, simply raise to three spades and let partner decide what he wants to do. You have no reason not to let partner have a say after this point. And, just for the record, two spades is usually played as forcing for one round, if not necessarily to game.
This Hand of the Day was originally published on aces.bridgeblogging.com.
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I learned my lesson