The Aces On Bridge by Bobby Wolff

In this deal from the 2006 World Mixed Pairs, Sabine Auken of Germany, admittedly receiving less than perfect defense, nevertheless made the most of her opportunities to bring home her game with an unlikely overtrick.

Opening Lead: ♦5

Against four hearts West led the diamond five, a likely singleton in view of proceedings. Auken played low from dummy, East winning with the king and returning a diamond. If West had allowed South’s queen to hold, the defense would still have prevailed, for declarer needs to set up dummy’s diamonds, then access them for black-suit discards. West’s three-card trump holding can thwart this line, so long as the trumps remain intact.

But West ruffed, and now needed to cash the spade ace to hold South to her contract. However, she returned a club, taken by the ace. Needing two entries to dummy, Auken successfully finessed the heart nine, ruffed a diamond with the trump ace, then returned to dummy via the trump king. Dummy’s established diamonds allowed Auken to take the rest.

At another table David Berkowitz (East), playing with Kathy Wei, shifted to a spade at trick two and South put up the king. Wei won her ace and underled her spade queen so that Berkowitz could win his jack. Now David felt obligated to give his partner the diamond ruff. Had he shifted to a club he would have obtained two down instead of one down, but if he disobeyed his partner twice on the same deal, he was worried about the consequences!

Bid with the aces

This Hand of the Day was originally published on aces.bridgeblogging.com.

Click here to play earlier Hands of the day ▶