The Aces On Bridge by Bobby Wolff

Michael Seamon of Florida is part of one of the most distinguished families of bridge, four of his family having participated successfully in world championships. Seamon found a fine play in this deal based on a second-degree assumption of how he needed the cards to lie.

Opening Lead: ♠9

Seamon’s call of two diamonds was forcing to game, so his quiet two-no-trump bid on the second round did not end the auction. North’s failure to raise diamonds directly had suggested that he had only three diamonds — hence the decision to play the inferior no-trump game.

West led the spade nine to the jack and king, and East returned a low spade to Seamon’s queen. Declarer had a spade trick now, but was still a long way from home. He needed to find the diamond queen and also to negotiate the heart suit for three tricks — a fairly unlikely combination of events.

However, his first move was to cash the heart king, noting the fall of West’s eight. Needing this to be from shortness (specifically the queen-doubleton), Seamon inferred that all the probabilities in that case would indicate that West would have longer diamonds than East. He backed his judgment by cashing the diamond king and finessing West for the queen on the next round. When the heart ace brought down the queen, he had nine tricks without touching clubs — a game swing. It was a hand for us all to admire.

Bid with the aces

This Hand of the Day was originally published on aces.bridgeblogging.com.

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