The Aces On Bridge by Bobby Wolff
Opening Lead: ♣A
Although this was a flat board from a European championship, it was certainly not dull.
In our featured room North should surely have heeded the warning signs of West’s sequence of bids, which surely suggested fair values with a heart stack. But in three hearts doubled, neither the play nor the defense was sparkling. West led the club ace and switched to a diamond to East’s ace. Declarer won the diamond return and played the spade jack to the king and ace. He now cashed the spade queen and ruffed a spade with the seven. West overruffed and declarer had to go two down, for minus 500.
Declarer should have ruffed the third spade high. Say West discards a club; now declarer ruffs a club and plays a winning spade, discarding his last diamond. West can trump, and play a diamond, but declarer ruffs and plays his last club to escape for one down.
In the other room the English defended two hearts doubled, and David Gold showed how the hand should be defended. He led a trump at trick one, and declarer won with the four in his hand (a rare event!) and played the club jack. West carefully went up with the ace and switched to the heart queen, his third good play. This was the only sequence of plays to ensure the defeat of two hearts, though in practice when declarer lost his way, he managed to go two down. No swing!
Bid with the aces
Answer: 3♣
Facing a passed partner I would jump to three clubs to make my opponents' task of finding a fit more difficult. Somebody has quite a lot of hearts, and since my partner has already passed, I'm guessing it is West. Whether he will be happy to find a heart contract is more difficult to predict.
This Hand of the Day was originally published on aces.bridgeblogging.com.
