The Aces On Bridge by Bobby Wolff
Opening Lead: ♦K
Today's deal was sent to me by a friend; I'm guessing it is an apocryphal story, but start by covering up the East-West hands and plan the play before reading on. In four hearts you receive the lead of a top diamond, followed by a shift to the spade jack. How do you plan the play?
The problem is that if you simply win the spade in dummy and play the heart king, West may be able to win, put his partner in with a diamond, and get a spade ruff. Can you see a way around the problem?
Knowing that West has most of the outstanding honor cards (and it is unlikely to cost anything anyway), you can find the Scissors Coup of winning the spade and playing three rounds of clubs. When East plays low on the third, you discard your diamond, thus swopping one loser for another and denying East an entry.
This is a good play, but most experts would expect to find it. However, there is a twist to the tale. With the cards lying as they do today, West can win the club queen and play another spade. A trick later he will get in with the trump ace and give his partner a spade ruff to defeat what appears to be the world’s easiest contract!
Of course if you claim to be the defender who found this ingenious shift, please write to the column and collect your brilliancy prize.
Bid with the aces
Answer: 2♠
When the opponents have agreed on a fit, as they implicitly have done here, the first double by your partnership should always be takeout. The double does not guarantee five spades, so a case could be made for bidding two diamonds, but my instincts are to raise to two spades to let partner know I have a minimum balanced hand with three trumps.
This Hand of the Day was originally published on aces.bridgeblogging.com.
