Hand of the day #322
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The Aces On Bridge by Bobby Wolff
In today's six clubs South shook his head reflectively as dummy came down, thinking that he should have been in the grand slam. A few seconds later he was shaken back into wakefulness when he cashed the club king and realized he had an inevitable trump loser.
Opening Lead: ♦10
After winning the opening lead with his diamond ace, he cashed the heart ace and played a club to the king. The heart king and queen followed, allowing declarer to throw both his losing diamonds away. After the spade ace and king both stood up, South advanced the spade eight.
West did the best he could when he discarded a diamond, and declarer ruffed low in dummy. Now came the club queen, and after nine tricks (three spades, three hearts one diamond and two clubs) a four-card ending had been reached, with the lead in dummy. North had four losing red cards, declarer the A-J-9 of clubs and the spade queen. West had three clubs to the 10 and a diamond.
Now declarer led a heart from dummy and ruffed high. To avoid being endplayed in trumps at the next trick West under-ruffed, a defense that would have been good enough had East held the master spade. (South would have led a spade to East, and West would have scored his club 10.) But when declarer led his spade queen, West could score only one of the last three tricks whatever he did.
Bid with the aces
Answer: 2♣
The simple route here is to bid Stayman, planning to bid two hearts over a response of two diamonds. This would be the equivalent of Crawling Stayman over a no-trump opening bid to suggest a weak hand with both majors. If partner shows a major, I'd guess to jump to game.
This Hand of the Day was originally published on aces.bridgeblogging.com.
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