The Aces On Bridge by Bobby Wolff
Opening Lead: ♥7
When South promised a spade control by raising North's five-heart jump to slam, West wisely decided to go passive with a trump lead.
Declarer now tried to improve on the simple chance that clubs would break favorably. He drew three rounds of trump, and when East discarded two diamonds, he realized that West was going to be very short in either clubs or diamonds. It would have been simple (but fatal) to cash the ace and king of clubs. Instead South found a very neat play. He took one top club, cashed three rounds of diamonds, pitching a spade from dummy, and found West with three cards in the suit, then led a club to dummy.
As expected, West showed out, but declarer was unfazed. He had reduced the hand to a five-card ending, where dummy had a singleton spade, a trump, and jack-third of clubs, while South had two trumps and his three spades left. He knew West was down to six spades, including the ace, so he led dummy’s spade and covered East’s card, endplaying West to give him a spade trick for the 12th winner.
Note that even if West had begun with fewer diamonds, and thus had a club left, a club play would have set up a club winner in dummy as an alternative route to the 12th trick. The only shape that would have been fatal to declarer was if West had started life with four diamonds and no clubs, when there is no winning line.
Bid with the aces
Answer: 4♦
Since three hearts is best played as forcing and you have a little in hand, you are probably worth one slam-try, though you would not want to go past four hearts without some cooperation from your partner. A call of four diamonds simply shows a diamond control and will maybe let partner take over from here.
This Hand of the Day was originally published on aces.bridgeblogging.com.
