Hand of the day #137
The Aces On Bridge by Bobby Wolff At the Dyspeptics Club neither North nor South...
This conundrum was written by Eddie Kantar and was originally published in the book Kantar for the Defense - Volume 2 - you can find out all about it further down the page.
We are East.
Opening Lead: ♣3
Dummy plays low and you win with the king, declarer playing the ♣5.
What do you play at trick two? Why?
It must be safe to return a club. If declarer has the ♥A you cannot defeat the hand, and if declarer has the ♣Q he cannot use it without first giving up the lead. You're covered.
You return the ♣4, declarer plays the ♣10 and partner the ♣J. How do you read the club suit?
Declarer has the ♣Q . If partner had the ♣Q J he would have played low (or the ♣Q if he could have afforded it). Playing a high honor unnecessarily denies a higher remaining honor. Therefore, the play of the ♣J denies the ♣Q .
At trick three declarer leads a low diamond from dummy. Which diamond do you play? Why?
The ♦A. Declarer is leading up to his ♦K for his eighth trick.
You win the ♦A, partner plays the ♦2. What do you play now? Why?
The ♥3. There is no future in either minor so you must go for four heart tricks. Your low heart play promises either the ace or king. With a lower honor you would have led the honor to prevent declarer from ducking the lead into partner's hand. Even though partner did lead from a weak club suit instead of a stronger heart suit you have come to the rescue…again. You take four heart tricks to defeat the contract one trick.
1- When a defender plays a high honor unnecessarily he is either unblocking or denying a higher honor.
2- A defender holding 10xx, Jxx or Qxx, needing three or four quick tricks from the suit should lead the honor when dummy to the right has small cards; leading low guarantees the Ace or King.
Kantar invites his reader to direct every play towards the goal of beating the contract in a variety of hands, bringing focus on counting tricks, points and distribution. Problems range from an intermediate to semi-advanced level and knowledge of basic card combinations is assumed. Each book concludes with a complete list of themes for its 100 problems.
