Hand of the day #278
The Aces On Bridge by Bobby Wolff David Gold, a regular on the England Open team...
The Aces On Bridge by Bobby Wolff
In the finals of the 2011 NEC tournament in Yokohama, Japan, both tables in today's deal reached six hearts on a spade lead, but in one case with North declarer, and in the other case with South.
Opening Lead: ♠8
For the losing Chinese team, Peng (North) won the spade lead in dummy, cashed the diamond king, then drew three rounds of trump ending in the North hand. Next he led a spade up, and David Gold, for the Anglo-Dutch winners, hopped up with the spade queen and returned the suit to eliminate any pressure in the endgame: down one. In fact, once declarer had cashed the heart ace and king, he could no longer make the hand.
Ricco van Prooijen showed how to do it at the other table. Sitting South, he won the spade lead in hand, played one top trump from hand, then led the diamond king, and crossed to a trump in dummy as East pitched a spade. Now declarer ruffed a diamond high, played the club ace, ruffed a club, and ruffed another diamond with his last high trump.
Next he ruffed a club to dummy, and East had either to let go a spade — in which case declarer would draw the trump and play on spades — or pitch a diamond, his actual choice.
Van Prooijen drew the last trump, cashed the diamond ace, and led a spade toward his jack at trick 12, with East down to the Q-10 of spades. Contract made.
Bid with the aces
Answer: 3♥
Although you have a beautiful hand you have no reason to assume that your partner has anything at all — even four hearts — since he might have been forced to act with nothing. Having doubled already to show a good hand, you can raise to three hearts now, to show an even better one and rely on partner to bid game with as little as queen-fifth of hearts and a black king.
This Hand of the Day was originally published on aces.bridgeblogging.com.
Not sure 4H is a no- brained but with our system is a shutout. We sometimes play that 3H would be forcing— in that case, I would bid 3H, expecting partner to bid 4H as a shutout or to begin showing controls. I can still bail short of slam.