The Aces On Bridge by Bobby Wolff
Opening Lead: ♥Q
Today's deal from a junior championships saw a good lead and smart declarer play rewarded with a nice pickup.
At both tables South’s two-spade opening showed a weak hand with spades and a minor. In one room where East had doubled four spades, West expected his partner to have values in all the three outside suits. So he led the diamond ace, and was rewarded when this led to an immediate diamond ruff and a quick one off.
At the other table, where East-West had passed throughout, West led a heart. Could declarer take advantage? After winning the heart ace, South ruffed a heart, drew trump (East pitching a heart), and ruffed another heart, the king appearing from East. He then led a club to the jack, king and ace. East returned a club, and declarer won, ruffed his last club, and paused to take stock.
West appeared to have started with five hearts. In addition, West was known to have the club 10 left (since he had played the jack on the first round and the 10 had not appeared yet). It followed that if either player was short in diamonds it was more likely to be West than East.
Accordingly, declarer led the diamond queen from dummy. East won his king and deceptively returned the diamond nine, but South rose with the jack, hoping that even if it lost to the king, West might be endplayed. His second chance came to pass; West won the diamond ace, but then had to give a ruff-sluff and the game came home.
Bid with the aces
Answer: 1NT
I am not going to be rash enough to say that it will always work better to open one no-trump than one spade. That clearly isn't true. But what I will suggest is that 5-3-3-2 distribution represents a balanced hand, and that when in the range of 15-16, you should open one no-trump no matter what your five-carder — unless you have all your high cards in your five-card major and a three-card side-suit.
This Hand of the Day was originally published on aces.bridgeblogging.com.
