Hand of the day #314
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The Aces On Bridge by Bobby Wolff
David Gold, a regular on the England Open team, sat South in this deal at the Young Chelsea Bridge Club. Duplicates take place every weekday and it would not be unusual to find half a dozen internationals playing on any evening.
Opening Lead: ♣K
After East opened two hearts to show at least five cards in the major together with an unspecified four-card minor, Gold became declarer in four spades.
West led the club king to dummy’s ace, as the club five appeared from East. It seemed likely that East’s second suit was diamonds, and if East also had the heart king, there would be four losers. The only suit likely to provide a discard was diamonds.
Gold cashed dummy’s top diamonds, then took the precaution of ruffing a third diamond high in hand as West discarded. The spade queen lost to East’s ace and back came the club 10, overtaken by West for a heart return, Gold taking his ace.
Now, aware that East held nine red cards and was likely to have three cards in clubs, both from East’s carding up the line and West’s silence in the auction, Gold placed East with the singleton trump ace.
Backing his judgment, he continued by finessing dummy’s spade seven, ruffed another diamond high, and now a trump to the jack allowed him to discard a heart on the established fifth diamond.
Bid with the aces
Answer: 3♥
In this sort of auction a bid of three hearts — a repeat use of the fourth-suit — is best used not as a red two-suiter, but as a way to ask for a half stop in hearts. If you had both red suits, you would surely simply bid three no-trump now, so your partner should bid no-trump with any three-card heart suit — even three small hearts.
This Hand of the Day was originally published on aces.bridgeblogging.com.