Bookworm Bridge Conundrums #42
This conundrum was written by Jeff Bayone and was originally published in t...
The Aces On Bridge by Bobby Wolff
After South's strong no-trump, West came in with two hearts and North showed four spades and no heart stop by cue-bidding three hearts. (Had he held a heart stopper and four spades, a convention called Lebensohl would have let him bid two no-trump as a puppet to three clubs, then cue-bid three hearts.)
The final contract of three no-trump was predictable enough, and West equally predictably led a top heart.
Opening Lead: ♥K
Before you play to the first trick, it is always a good idea to count your winners and decide where you need to set up tricks and who is the danger hand. A cursory count of potential winners should come to eight. If clubs split, you have nine tricks, so you need to allow for the likelihood that they will not break.
The secret here is that the hearts are useless to you, and the diamond king is worth nothing if the ace is onside. If that is so, West will have heart winners galore, ready to cash. So you must hope the diamond ace is offside!
Win the heart lead for fear of the diamond shift, unblock your spade honors, then cross to a top club and cash the spade jack. Now take your club winners, ending in dummy. If the fourth club is not a winner, exit with the club loser and wait for East to lead a diamond. With any luck, the diamond ace will be offside, and East will be endplayed to lead around to dummy’s diamond king.
Lead with the aces
Answer: lead a club
Your best choice for setting up tricks is a heart lead, but at the same time this lead is likely to give up a trick unnecessarily. I'd prefer to lead the more passive club, hoping that if dummy does not have a long running club suit, we can defeat the contract by giving nothing away. The diamond jack is also a good choice if looking for a swing action.
This Hand of the Day was originally published on aces.bridgeblogging.com.
