The Aces On Bridge by Bobby Wolff

In today’s deal, South had a minimum but normal opening bid, and North at his second turn felt too good to bid only three diamonds, which would have been consistent with a hand that was purely competitive without any game interest. Hence the partnership reached the Goldilocks level of four diamonds — not too low, not too high, just right.

Opening Lead: ♦A

Since North-South had avoided a no-trump contract and North had shown an unbalanced hand, West guessed to lead the diamond ace and a second diamond. If South had made the mistake of going for spade ruffs in the long trump hand, he would have found that that there was also a fourth club to look after, and that this could not be ruffed without letting West on lead to play a third round of trumps. Declarer found a better solution by ducking a heart into East’s hand at the third trick.

Then he could play to take two heart ruffs in his own hand, losing one heart, one diamond, and one club. In total, the tricks he scored were four tricks in aces and kings, two heart ruffs in hand, and four trumps in dummy.

It is worth noting that if declarer plays the spade ace and ruffs a spade at tricks three and four, then leads out the club king and another club, ducking when East’s jack appears, then West must overtake to be in position to play the third diamond. Otherwise, declarer’s crossruff succeeds.

Bid with the aces

This Hand of the Day was originally published on aces.bridgeblogging.com.

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