The Aces On Bridge by Bobby Wolff
Opening Lead: ♦2
In today's deal the North-South bidding was no more than adequate, but it was South's play that left room for significant improvement.
At his final turn North might well have converted six spades to six no-trump to protect his diamond tenace. When West obediently led the diamond two, declarer optimistically inserted dummy’s queen, but of course the finesse lost. At this point East did well to return a diamond, removing an entry from the table, rather than the more obvious heart shift. After winning with the diamond ace, declarer tested the clubs by cashing the ace and king, then ruffed a club high. Since the queen had not appeared, all that was left was to cash the two top spades, ending in dummy, and fall back on the heart finesse. Down one.
Can you see a better approach to the play? Suppose that declarer simply plays low from dummy at trick one. East wins with his jack but clearly cannot return the suit without conceding the 12th trick. Say that he switches to a heart; South wins with his ace and follows with three rounds of clubs as before. Then comes the spade ace, and another spade to dummy’s king allows another club to be ruffed high. The key difference is that after South draws the last trump, the diamond ace is still in dummy as an entry to the long club.
Finally, I leave my resourceful readers to work out what might have happened if West had found the lead of the diamond 10.
Bid with the aces
Answer: Pass
I would sit for one no-trump doubled, since partner might well have run if he were weak and had a long suit (particularly if he was short in hearts). The danger with bidding two clubs is that the opponents may be able to take heart ruffs against that contract. And one no-trump is a level lower, after all.
This Hand of the Day was originally published on aces.bridgeblogging.com.
