Hand of the day #265
The Aces On Bridge by Bobby Wolff Today's deal shows how you can achieve remarka...
The Aces On Bridge by Bobby Wolff
After this relatively long auction to six spades, West knew enough to lead the heart three. How would you plan the play?
Opening Lead: ♥3
When trumps are 3-2 and clubs no worse that 4-2, you can make the contract by winning the heart ace, cashing the club king, drawing trumps ending in hand, and ruffing a low club. You will make four trumps, the red aces, five clubs and a club ruff.
However, whereas trumps are a favorite to split, clubs rate to be 4-2 rather than 3-3, so you should try to protect against the expected as well as unexpected bad breaks. If one player has long spades, you hope it is East — but you still need to be careful.
After winning the heart ace and cashing the club king, you need to manipulate the trump suit. Suppose you carelessly play the spade ace followed by the six to your king. When you continue with a club ruff, you will be left with the bare spade 10 on the table. East will not cover when you lead it, and you will have no safe way to draw his last trump. One down!
The winning play after cashing the spade ace is to lead the spade 10 to the king. You ruff a low club with the nine and then play dummy’s trump six, finessing the eight in your hand. You can then draw the last trump with the queen and claim the contract.
Bid with the aces
Answer: Double
If you are unwilling to pass, should you overcall, double, or bid one no-trump? The last option is unpalatable for more than one reason, and a two-level overcall in your weak diamond suit might have you banned from bridge. What's left is a canape one-spade overcall, or — my choice — a double. I'd be planning to convert a two-club response to two diamonds, pretending I have a little more than I do.
This Hand of the Day was originally published on aces.bridgeblogging.com.
It is a clear pass, not a dbl to me
Absolutely disagree. To show informative dbl having such a hand may too easily lead to a very bad score. Clear pass to me
Absolutely disagree. To show informative dbl having such a hand may too easily lead to a very bad score. Clear pass to me
"If you are unwilling to pass" - I am not. Poor suits, much defence, and another chance coming. If it goes pass-3H weak, we may indeed have been fixed out of 4S, but after D-3H or D-4H, good luck when p bids clubs at a much higher level than author's convenient 2C.