Hand of the day #242
The Aces On Bridge by Bobby Wolff The old-fashioned textbooks tell you to lead k...
The Aces On Bridge by Bobby Wolff
Some cards are easy to cover; some are not. This is surely about as low as one can go (in all senses of the word) when it comes to avoiding the cover.
Opening Lead: ♣K
At the U.S. Trials in 1997 both tables reached four hearts, but where Martel for the eventually successful Deutsch team was declarer, he had heard his LHO bid only the black suits. He won the opening club lead with the ace in dummy and played the heart nine immediately. Sitting East, I took the ace and returned a spade. Martel put up the king, but Bob Hamman, sitting West, knew better than to take the trick and provide an entry to dummy. He ducked the trick, and when Martel exited from hand with a club, Hamman won the trick, cashed his spade ace, and exited with a third club. Now the defense could keep declarer out of dummy for a further heart finesse, so Martel lost a second heart trick — one down.
Where Nick Nickell was declaring four hearts, East had bid hearts in the auction shown. Nickell took the club lead and innocently played the heart five from dummy. Be honest; as East would you have remembered to cover this with the six? When East did not do so, Nickell played low from his hand as well, and the heart five held the trick. Now the lead remained in dummy for declarer to repeat the heart finesse, and with only one heart trick to lose, made the contract.
Bid with the aces
Answer: 3NT
Your partner has shown a very good hand (a better hand than if he had jumped to three diamonds over one spade). Since you have a perfectly good spade stop, you should bid three no-trump now, expecting your partner will know you are not loaded for bear in spades, since you did not bid no-trump at your previous turn.
This Hand of the Day was originally published on aces.bridgeblogging.com.
South knows that West has null hearts. East has to solve it out and "innocently" put the 6 of hearts down. Or in case, just the instinct to crush the opponents card would do.
East must play his ace on trick 2, if he wants to make 2 tricks, that's more than obvious and one doesnt need to be a genius to know that...
I have had my bridge game hacked https://news.bridgebase.com/