The Aces On Bridge by Bobby Wolff
Opening Lead: ♥7
Can you spot the winning defense in this deal from the 0-10,000 MP Swiss at Saint Louis last spring? It looks normal enough — if slightly aggressive — to reach four spades with the North-South cards. All it appears to need is a decent break in trumps, so you would probably want to be in game.
On a heart lead, South ruffed as East deceptively played his king (disguising the position of the minor honors in the suit) and elected to play the club queen. Quite reasonably he assumed that he could always play on diamonds later, and that he might learn something to his advantage if he went after clubs first.
West correctly ducked the first club, then when South persisted with his attack on clubs, won the club king with the ace, East suggesting a doubleton in the process. What should West do now?
At the table West played a diamond and declarer took 11 tricks. But the winning answer (though you might argue that this would be impossible to find at the table) is to play the third club to let partner discard a diamond. Then you must find the Merrimac coup of shifting to the diamond king to remove the entry to the clubs from dummy.
If declarer ducks to preserve his entry, you must play another diamond, and now dummy is dead. By virtue of his diamond discard, your partner can now overruff any attempt to ruff a diamond in dummy. Beautiful, isn’t it?
Bid with the aces
Answer: 2♥
You should not seriously consider passing here. Partner's reopening double suggests shortage and normal defense, but your weak trumps are not really enough to consider playing for penalties. The same hand with the club queen instead of the two might come closer. Bid two hearts now.
This Hand of the Day was originally published on aces.bridgeblogging.com.
