Hand of the day #848
The Aces On Bridge by Bobby Wolff Opening Lead: ♦K Today's deal was sent to me...
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: ♣4
One general tenet of defense is to lead low cards from honors and high cards from poor suits. Obviously this is a good general rule, but, as always, rules are no substitute for thought. Cover up the West and South hands on today's deal and plan the defense against three no-trump before reading on.
West leads the club five. You, East, win your ace, declarer dropping the queen. What is your best chance of defeating this game?
At the table, one East switched to the heart six. Declarer played low and West’s jack won the trick. West continued with another heart to the nine, queen and king. Note that even if East had been able to gain the lead to play a third round of the suit, declarer could simply duck East’s eight, preventing the defense from taking two more tricks in the suit. As it was, declarer won the heart king and played on clubs. West ducked twice, but declarer pressed on with clubs, guaranteeing his contract. In fact, he ended up with 10 tricks.
At the other table, East, realizing that he was likely to be on lead for the one and only time that hand, tried the effect of switching to the heart queen. This worked like a dream. Declarer covered with the king and West won his ace. He then continued with the heart jack and a third round of the suit, East’s eight forcing the 10. When West gained the lead with the club king, he could cash the heart seven for one down.
Bid with the aces
Answer: Pass
There is no reason to accept the invitation to game with an unsatisfactory club-holding and a weak spade stopper. If your partner's clubs were semisolid, he would surely have bid three no-trump at his last turn. However, your spade stopper is uncomfortably feeble, so let three clubs go. With the spade 10 in addition, you might consider looking for no-trump.
This Hand of the Day was originally published on aces.bridgeblogging.com.
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