Hand of the day #206
The Aces On Bridge by Bobby Wolff All the deals this week come from the Cavendis...
The Aces On Bridge by Bobby Wolff
The NEC tournament in Yokohama takes place over Valentine’s Day every year.
Opening Lead: ♦K
Peter Gill contributed a nice play by Brian Senior in today’s deal, where he declared four spades doubled. West led a diamond and accurately shifted to a trump. It looks natural to win this cheaply in dummy and lead a club, but the defenders have the upper hand if they win and lead a second diamond. Declarer can crossruff the minor suits to set up the clubs, but will run out of trumps in the process. At the very end, West can keep a master diamond and the heart ace.
Senior figured out that he needed the heart ace onside, come what may. So he took the trump shift in hand and led a heart up. West ducked, and now declarer could win dummy’s heart king and lead a club. The defenders could take the club ace and cross to the West hand with a heart for the second trump play, but now declarer was in control and could establish clubs.
Had the defenders played to force declarer at trick five, the fact that the heart trick was in the bag would have made the critical difference. Even though the defenders could in fact have prevailed by winning the heart ace and playing a second trump, that does not detract from Senior’s play.
Lead with the aces
Answer: Lead a ♦9
To have a shot to beat this contract, you will need to find partner with close to an opening bid. If he does have that hand, maybe he has stayed silent in this auction because he has some length in dummy’s first-bid suit, so lead the diamond nine. At matchpoints a spade might be less “do or die.”
This Hand of the Day was originally published on aces.bridgeblogging.com.
