Hand of the day #253
The Aces On Bridge by Bobby Wolff This deal from a past junior championship was ...
The Aces On Bridge by Bobby Wolff
When this deal came up in a local duplicate, several North-South pairs tried to cash in on four spades by East-West, doubled. This was hardly unreasonable, but with the heart suit lying beautifully for East-West, there was no defense to the game.
Opening Lead: ♠K
Of course, North-South could do much better than that. Say you reach five diamonds after West overcalled in spades and East made a pre-emptive raise to three spades, leaving you room to explore the hand more fully. Plan the play on the lead of the spade king.
Many declarers won and immediately tackled clubs while they still had entries to the dummy in trumps. A good idea, but it did not work today. East won an early club and knew that continuing spades was fruitless. His heart shift let West cash two winners in that suit, for down one.
Could South have done better? Yes, if he had ducked the opening lead! Now he can discard a club on the spade ace and establish the clubs without letting East get the lead to play a heart through. Best defense is a trump at trick two, but declarer has enough entries to the board in diamonds to bring home 11 tricks. He wins the diamond shift, plays off the black aces, ruffs a club high, goes to the diamond 10, and ruffs a club high again. Then he goes back to the diamond queen to run the clubs and discard three of his four heart losers.
Bid with the aces
Answer: 4NT
If your partner cannot double four spades, you are unlikely to collect any sort of penalty. It looks sensible to compete in a minor now, and the best way to do that is to bid four no-trump. This cannot be Blackwood, given your previous pass. It suggests a real club suit and diamond support (an extension of the “unusual” principle) and gets partner to pick a minor.
This Hand of the Day was originally published on aces.bridgeblogging.com.
Why not bid 3D over 2S?