Hand of the day #243
The Aces On Bridge by Bobby Wolff In this deal from the IMP Pairs at the world c...
The Aces On Bridge by Bobby Wolff
After receiving a simple raise, South should perhaps have bid two spades in an effort to reach a 5-4 or 4-4 spade fit on his hand, since it would be useful to score club ruffs in the 4-4 fit.
Opening Lead: ♣K
As it was, in four hearts South ruffed the club king lead to four hearts and correctly started on his side-suit, leading a spade to the queen and ace. East came back a club, ruffed again, whereupon declarer laid down the heart ace-king, intending to claim 11 tricks when everyone followed. Alas, they broke badly and now the best declarer could do was ruff a third club and score four diamond tricks for one off. However, he did not even manage that in practice. He played a spade too early, and went down in flames when West ruffed in, drew trump, and ran clubs.
The defense was strong. West could envisage the success of a forcing defense and did not want to surrender a tempo (or resolve a guess) by leading their singleton. However, declarer might have done better. After ruffing the second club, declarer might reason to cash only one top heart then play spades.
South does not mind if someone ruffs in from a doubleton as then trumps would be breaking. Here, West would ruff in and be unable to pull South’s trumps. Declarer could ruff the third club, cash the heart king and continue running pointed-suit winners. Thus, he remains in control.
Bid with the Aces
Answer: 4♣
It may feel like you have too much for a simple raise to three clubs as little more than the likely singleton spade and three top cards in the other suits will suffice for game, but jumping to five clubs would be a stretch. A highly invitational four clubs might be possible; I think I’d settle for the slight underbid of the simple raise.
I disagree! If partner open with 11 pp you risk to play 4 clubs with only 18pp even if with probably at least 10 clubs on the line. My idea is that it's quite impossible to play manche so i suggest to pass