Hand of the day #242
The Aces On Bridge by Bobby Wolff The old-fashioned textbooks tell you to lead k...
The Aces On Bridge by Bobby Wolff
In today’s deal East must pass the one-spade opening — he is a queen short of a no-trump overcall. Equally, South lacks the requirements for a two-over-one response, so he should respond one no-trump. At his second chance to bid, he can introduce his hearts. (His overall strength has been limited by his first response.) North can now pass two hearts happily. He knows he is facing a minimum hand with heart length and no fit for the black suits.
Opening Lead: ♠8
Now to the play. On the lead of the ♠8, it looks natural for declarer to take the ♠A and play for diamond ruffs in dummy; but accurate defense of shifting to trumps will foil his plan.
Instead, although South has only a singleton spade, he should duck the opening lead to develop two spade tricks in dummy. With only five heart tricks (provided that the suit divides 3-2) and one club in sight, declarer needs two spade tricks to make his contract.
The safest way to cash the spade tricks is after two rounds of trumps have been drawn. This prevents a spade ruff by the defender who is short in trumps. So, assuming the defenders shift to trumps at trick two, declarer should win the heart king, then the ace, and try to cash out the spades, discarding diamonds from dummy. This way, when West ruffs in, declarer has held his losers to two diamonds and one in each of the other suits.
Bid with the Aces
Answer: 4♠
When the opponents pre-empt against you, it is natural not to want to bid except with full values. However, I would argue the opposite approach. Since they don’t know how much they have, it is safer, not more dangerous, for you to bid here. Bid four spades, confidently, and although you will occasionally run into problems, more often the opponents will get it wrong.
This Hand of the Day was originally published on aces.bridgeblogging.com.
It could be a valid approach just considering that you can go down of two so it is better 4sx-2 instead of leave the opps 4H. Please consider that North can have any spade at all! Furthermore he hasn't many points probably they will neverbe enough to bid 4S. In my opinion I can bid 4S if I'm playing a tournement and I would like to recover in the ranking bidding more aggressive