The Aces On Bridge by Bobby Wolff
Opening Lead: ♥Q
By reading, and by learning from other people's mistakes, the expert can sometimes get the play right in a position he has not actually encountered before. Today's deal provides such an example, which comes from the final of the 1986 Australian Interstate Championships. Against four spades West led the heart queen, and declarer took it with dummy's ace to try to camouflage the position as best he could, while East discouraged. Now declarer came to hand, drawing just one round of trumps, then led a diamond. Put yourself in West's shoes: Would you win the diamond ace, or would you duck?
When you’ve made your decision, compare what happened at the table. West knew that his side had no tricks coming in the majors, and that he needed his partner to have the diamond jack — on the bidding there was no chance that he could hold the club king. So on the first round of diamonds West contributed the queen and dummy the king. On the diamond continuation, East rose with the jack and put the club 10 on the table. Curtains for declarer!
As you can see, if West ducks the first diamond, he can subsequently be endplayed in diamonds to lead clubs. And if he goes up with the ace, he can later be thrown in with a heart (declarer pitching a club from dummy on the third heart) to lead clubs, again after the trumps and diamonds have been stripped off.
Bid with the aces
Answer: 5♠
Your partner's jump to four hearts is a splinter bid, agreeing spades and showing short hearts. You would like to bid Blackwood — but how do you know partner has a club control? Best now is to jump to five spades, which focuses on control in the danger suit, clubs. Partner will bid slam with second-round control or better, and pass without a control.
This Hand of the Day was originally published on aces.bridgeblogging.com.
