You can now play the hand of the day on BBO+ and compare how you get on with the players in the article.
The Aces On Bridge by Bobby Wolff
Opening Lead: ♣8
In 1974, BOLS Royal Distilleries, a Dutch company, first sponsored a competition in which the world's best players were asked to write articles promoting their favorite bridge tips. Inevitably, the first crop of tips was the best, and one of the best of those was called "The Intrafinesse," submitted by the Brazilian superstar, Gabriel Chagas.
Today’s deal is an extremely challenging example of the theme. North-South had done well to avoid four spades, which would have had to go down when East turns up with the heart jack, and there is a virtually inevitable diamond loser.
Against three no-trump West found the best lead of a club. In practice declarer broached diamonds by running dummy’s queen (hoping for West to have a singleton honor or two honors doubleton), but still could manage only two diamond tricks, bringing his total to eight.
Declarer could have succeeded if he had relied on an intrafinesse, which involves first finessing against a significant missing card, then pinning it on the next round. He should start with a diamond to dummy’s six, which would have lost to East’s eight. On the next round of the suit declarer leads dummy’s diamond queen covered by the king and ace, and West’s 10 falls. Now declarer’s J-7 are poised over East’s 9-2, Declarer cashes his spades ending in dummy, then plays a diamond to his seven, thus making the three diamond tricks he needed for his contract. This line works against a doubleton eight, nine or 10 in West.
Bid with the aces
Answer: 2♠
You should respond two spades rather than two hearts because your plan is to compete to three hearts if East backs in with three diamonds. If you bid two hearts after North doubles, you will be unable to offer partner the choice of majors at the three-level.
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.
