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
Every year the Young Chelsea Bridge Club hosts the Lederer Memorial Trophy. This invitational event allows you to watch great players up close, both at the table and on the Vugraph presentation, and even on the computer, since the tournament is frequently covered on Bridge Base Online.
Opening Lead: ♥Q
Today’s deal was one of the best-defended hands from the 2006 event. Zia Mahmood is quite rightly well-known for his sparkling declarer play, but this time he made fewer tricks than anyone else in the field. The star of the show was Ireland’s Hugh McGann, who got his side off to a good start when he led the heart queen (in his methods, showing the king) rather than the spade three, which was the choice at other tables.
Zia won in dummy with the ace, and East, Tom Hanlon, played the four, showing an odd number. With the diamond queen likely to be offside, Zia chose to play diamonds from the top. When he found out the bad news, he continued with his four club tricks. West discarded two spades and East one.
Zia now got off play with the spade queen, East unblocking the 10. West won the king and found the only card to give him a chance: the heart 10! This created an entry to his partner’s hand with the nine. Zia won the jack, but there was nothing he could do. West had managed to avoid the endplay, and the defense could always come to five tricks.
Bid with the aces
Answer: Pass
Your partner rates to have five or more spades and four diamonds, with something like an 18 or 19 count. If your club 10 were the spade 10, you might have enough to look for higher things. As it is, the lack of club control is unattractive — as is the singleton in partner’s suit. All this suggests that passing is the most discreet action now.
This Hand of the Day was originally published on aces.bridgeblogging.com.
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He has to finesse the D few options after cashing the 4 clubs