Best Answer: ♠

You and partner agreed that when you lead an Ace, they’ll signal attitude: HIGH if they want you to continue, LOW if not. However, there's an exception: if the suit is "dead", meaning there are clearly no more tricks in that suit, they’ll signal suit preference.

Look at dummy! The club suit is clearly dead. So they can't encourage you to continue with clubs as they have nothing there. Their ♣10 means: Preference to the high suit, therefore spades!

If they wanted you to play a diamond, they would’ve followed with a low club to trick 1. But, if they wanted Spades, why did they bid 2♦? They initially wanted a diamond lead, especially against a NT contract. But things changed. They didn’t know it would end up in 4♥ and didn’t know you had a singleton in clubs, as they realized from your lead (you lead opponent's suit, not theirs).

Also, they know the entry to their hand is in spades, not diamonds. They're showing you where their entry is at trick 1. And you MUST be alert to that and follow their carding.

If you play a diamond (or heart) at trick 2, the declarer will make 11 tricks: five hearts, four clubs, and two diamonds. But if you switch to spades, they will take the ♠K, continue clubs which you ruff, then spade to the ♠A, another club ruff, and another spade for them to ruff. They’d go 3 Down! 7 tricks instead of 11 for the declarer.

Note:

On an Ace lead, you normally signal attitude: HIGH encourages partner to stick with the suit, LOW suggests a switch.
If the suit is "dead", it means there’s clearly no more tricks for us in that suit, then whether dummy has high cards like here or a singleton and the next card will be ruffed, then 3rd hand signals suit preference.
If partner's carding contradicts their bid, you normally need to follow the carding because bidding happened much earlier, and new things have happened since – seeing dummy for example.
Third hand plays high, but with a sequence of high cards, play the LOW card from that sequence. When you played spades and they won it with the ♠K, it's clear they also have the ♠A. If they win the first spade with the ace, it means they don’t hold the K.

Test Your Bridge Skills 47

Leave a Reply Cancel reply